He was factually wrong in alot of it too. I swear at a point he was talking about how they can make stuff which is not illegal. Had a picture of a Mdma particle and drew on an oxygen atom, and said this would now be legal. I am not a chemical lawyer or any such expert but I swear that would still be classed as a class A under the cover all clauses we have for analogues in this country (the reason 2c-i etc was always illegal here, even before it was tasted by man but not in the states, as it is too chemically similar to mescaline which is a class A) I think he simplified it a bit too much there really, as although Mephedrone and methylone are beta ketone analogues of mdma, they are still distinctly different compounds.. Its not quite as simple as he made out. As you can clearly see if he had taken 2 mins to compare on anywhere he cared to look: MDMA – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Methylenedioxymethcathinone – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 4-Methylmethcathinone – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shocking stuff.
There were alot of scare tactics used, and I found the way he dealt with the people good enough to be willing to be interviewed pretty poorly, esp the guy at the end chatting about the RC’s. The faces he pulled when matey was giving him a (small) list of the rc’s he had tried, and he didn’t even give him time to get past about 3 names, matey just pulled a face because they were names of chemicals, and not brand names. That video he showed him annoyed the hell out of me too, you could tell it was pretty old, which showed it hasn’t happened in recent years since the RC’s (it looked like it easily pre dated the internet) took off, and was concerning completely unrelated chemicals.
Very poor journalism IMHO.
He kept on reporting that he couldn’t find out what the active chemicals were in most of the legal highs, which is rubbish a fair % of them if not herbal have the info on the packaging, and those that don’t (such as spice etc, which don’t so that people don’t realise quite how cheap it would be to make) a quick search online will for 99% of them find out the active ingredients. EG: Spice is mainly jwh 018 (which is really cheap btw) sprayed on plant matter. In the show he kept reporting that nobody, knew what it was.
They portrayed the psyhonaught as a proper nutter.. The way it was editted when the police walked past, him acting weird about the guy having a problem having white powders in baggies on the table in public around the police. Of course matey would be worried, as the police will not know its legal until the tests come back, and to say that he knew what he was doing was dodgy because of his reaction to the police was wrong. I was pretty angry after watching that show, wanted to send feedback in.. but I figured it would just be taken as a “druggie” trying to defend his undefendable habit.
Also one of the most sketchy things I saw/heard on the show wasn’t even touched on, when he went to guernsey he met some people into the legal highs and went off in a car with them to a car park where they all (drivers included, or at least thats the impression I got) smoked a pile of spice and said it was pretty standard for them to have a smoke somewhere for 40 mins or so, then drive somewhere else and repeat the process.. It struck me as strange that he didn’t bring up that they were driving about on this stuff, which was probably pretty dangerous and illegal even if the chemicals were legal. Don’t get me wrong, I used to smoke weed while driving on long journeys when younger pretty much religiously, but I wouldn’t anymore, and I’m not foolish enough to belive I wasn’t a worse driver when stoned, so its probably fair to say that another canaboid is likely to affect your driving in a negative way. Its one thing taking a risk yourself, but another putting other people at risk. Anyways, was shocked at the quality/balance of the reporting from the bbc.
One of the only redeeming points to the whole show is when the Uni professor was saying he would probably prefer people to take mdma, as at least that has had alot more informal testing, and I suspect even this was only kept in the edit to show how dangourious these legals must be if a prof is recommending illegal drugs. It is true that Rc’s should be respected in alot of cases more than the standard illegals, due to the unknown element/lack of testing. I just didn’t like the way they got that msg across.
Looks like I wrote a bit of an essay, sorry if it doesn’t make alot of sence can’t blame you if you don’t read it.. Just needed to vent, and this seemed as appropriate place as any.
Mustard
