The "legal highs" bill of the new Conservative government is probably the worst bill of the lot. It's an unspoken truth that drug users, when denied their choice cut, will simply switch to something else and the recent "explosion" in legal highs seems to bear this out.

In June 2008, $7.6bn (or 33 tonnes) of sassafras oil were seized in Cambodia, and the following year ecstasy virtually disappeared from British clubs. And, concurrently, the purity of street cocaine has fallen from 60pc in 2002 to just 22pc in 2009.

And, as the quality of ecstasy also decreased, a new drug known as mephedrone began a wave of popularity. Law changes and harsher enforcement in India which led to the drought of ketamine in the UK led to users--knowingly and unknowingly--taking the substitute known as methoxetamine. And, of course, most legal highs are cannabinoids which seek to replicate the effects of cannabis. 

Were it the case that cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy not so harshly regulated it's fair to say that these myriad legal highs probably wouldn't exist in the same capacity. The government, however, simply won't tolerate such thinking and so must ban legal highs as they crop up, despite the fact that cannot and never will be able to keep pace with the rate of drug production. When mephedrone was made a Class B drug in 2010, it's no surprise that drugs like NRG-1 and "Benzo Fury" rose up to take its place.

So, what is the Conservatives' solution to this? Just fucking ban everything, as the new psychoactive drugs bill will prohibit the trading of "any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect". Yet we all know that banning something doesn't just make it disappear, an expert panel commissioned by the government acknowledged that the 50pc increase in seizures of Class B drugs in 2012-2014 was driven by the continued sale of mephedrone. And while the usage of mephedrone has fallen compared to pre-ban levels, its purity has plummeted and its street price doubled, as other drugs have come into the market to fill up the slack in usage.

I mean, even the Home Office acknowledges that there is no "obvious relationship between the toughness of a country’s enforcement against drug possession, and levels of drug use in that country".

On a similar note, I've been arguing for months that this area's ridiculous marijuana crackdowns are what lead to the current 3-county-wide heroin epidemic here. Now we have ridiculous lacings going around too...
The future is so bright I don't need eyes to see it.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on May 28, 2015, 09:36:14 AM

the following year ecstasy virtually disappeared from British clubs.

They did?

What the fuck have I been taking then?

Well it's probably come back now, no doubt mixed with adulterants like mephedrone.