in the UK “safety” isn’t just avoiding making poison or setting a fire but there are (and have been for 30 years) shadowy setups like “Prevent” where the cops and even your tutors are covertly watching you in case you are using what you are learning to do anything they consider illegal. In some cases they even get access to NHS records.
Although currently the focus is on certain ethnic/religious groups and explosives, they are trying to be more “diverse” with the surveillance and have in the past been monitoring all science students they suspect of making drugs or importing/diverting them.
A lot of middle class British Asian students in London and Northern unis got pulled up a few years back for stuff like modafinil and other “smartdrugs (although I suspect they got caught because the feds were “watching what young brown skinned people are up to”). They also check up on computer science students suspected of hacking/cybercrime.
From around 2010 until early Spring last year it was literallly possible to legally buy all sorts of benzo-type drugs online, which were just as strong as the “legit” pharms, some of them were indeed legit licensed pharms in other European nations (although not the UK). There were of course some issues with addiction but the purchasers of these ( as opposed to the branded blends of random chemicals) were/are mostly older, well educated middle class users who were well aware of the change in legislation and most managed to taper off their doses so there wasn’t the expected carnage to the NHS when the supplies dried up.
These substances can still be obtained via the “underground” methods but in any case you really shouldn’t have to consider committing a crime to get a medication that you need to feel better/normal, especially when it would be better your doctor monitors the dosage amongst any other medications you might be taking.
It is bad enough you have to commit crime (even minor ones) to get “party” drugs as it is – that caused me much more hassle during my youth than the drugs themselves.
