Mephedrone is the common name for 4-methylmethcathinone. This is a synthetic derivative of cathinone, first synthesized in 1929, and largely forgotten until the early 2000s when Israeli scientists working for an insecticide company started experimenting with cathinones as octopamine analogues to disrupt the brain activity of aphids so make them less damaging to plants. Mephedrone  …

During the Easter holiday in 2015, 22-year-old Egil André Kvelstad Myhre was found dead in his apartment, after a cardiac arrest . Myhre was not a common drug user, as his family stated he had never done drugs before. Hours before his death, Myhre had attended a party in Namsos where he was introduced to  …

The recent spate of headlines about the rising use of monkey dust drug in Stoke on Trent has led to calls to it to be made a Class A drug [from Class B where it/they are currently placed]. Whilst it is understandable that parents and local community groups would like to put an end to  …

Nitrous oxide has returned to our headlines - last month two possession with intent to supply Crown Court cases collapsed and this week the 2016 mortality figures were released. The cases were brought forward under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 (PSA) and fell apart when both judges ruled that nitrous oxide was in fact exempt  …

On December 14th the government put into effect new controls against a whole range of synthetic cannabinoids. This was their third round of controls against these new hyper-potent recreational cannabis agonist drugs that have taken over many of our prisons and also are wreaking havoc in the homeless population. The first two sets of controls  …