by Nick Craig, Dublin

Isn’t is amazing what you can buy on the Internet these days?

In 2009 about 29 new compounds hit the streets and nobody is quite sure where they originated. Labs in China sell it by the kilo, they say. The big one in the UK & Ireland right now is mephadrone, also known as blow, snow, shit coke or ‘meow meow.’  The ‘Head Shops’ sell at 30 euro a gram but all you need is a postal address and a credit card to undercut them.  In bulk, it’s just over one euro a gram and the effective dose is a fraction of even that.

If some drugs are illegal because they are effective the this makes a mockery of the whole thing.  It seems to derive from an African plant but the crystalline substance seems highly manufactured.  ‘At least it’s pure’ they say. Pure what?

Criminals are responding by burning down head shops.  The fact that their business is being robbed is a reason to approve but this whole thing is underscored by a very nasty little fact – it’s addictive, really addictive.

Some people get into drugs. They are dangerous and a lot of users tell you that it goes with the territory. Non-users stay away for this reason but one ‘seasoned’ user told me that he reckoned the ‘legal’ aspect is tricking people into doing rakes of the stuff, people who would probably never stray past the odd puff of a joint. I didn’t want to believe this because of my grand liberal theory about drugs in society – the people who do them know what they are getting into. They have to if they’re sourcing the stuff from criminals and paying through the nose for it.

People used to go to great lengths to get high like this but now all has changed. I’m not talking about smoking a joint here. People who would never otherwise be into this kind of thing are spending weekends without sleeping. They are doing this every weekend but just because they don’t buy it down a back alley doesn’t mean they’re not a swiftly all becoming drug addicts.

In Ireland, it becomes a class B drug in June. The UK has already banned mephadrone but the race to the bottom has already begun – a new, cheaper compound is out and governments will have to legislate all over again. It’s hard to see where it will end but you can imagine T-shirts in ten years time ‘I survived the legal highs wave of 2010.’  A nasty start to the decade, I would say.