LEGAL HIGHS: THE NEW 'SOCIAL TONICS'?

Britain's drugs laws are in a mess, and into the confusion has
stepped a new breed of drugs entrepreneurs who claim they have the
answer: safe, substitute substances.

I meet my dealer, Matt Bowden, in the plush foyer of a Kensington
hotel. He welcomes me with a big smile on his boyish face, hands over
his business card and opens up his laptop. "I've got a PowerPoint
presentation on the pills if you'd like to see it," he offers.

Matt Bowden isn't exactly an ordinary dealer. Indeed, in the truest
sense of the word, he isn't a dealer at all. For one thing, the pills
he's selling are perfectly legal. He's a smart marketing man from New
Zealand who sees Britain's unquenchable desire for "social tonics" -
his favourite phrase - as a big opportunity.

"There needs to be a move away from prohibition in drug laws," he
argues in his soft Kiwi accent. "Today the laws reward gangsters and
that's completely dysfunctional. What I'm saying is: let's look at it
from a marketing perspective and see what consumer needs are
currently being met by criminals. Are people looking to relax? Is it
a social lubricant? People take E, for instance, to break down
barriers so they can communicate in a social environment. I'm saying
we should meet those consumer needs with something that has a lower
risk profile."

Until last Friday, Bowden had hoped this country was going to be
receptive to his arguments. In January, the then home secretary,
Charles Clarke, announced a full review of the UK's drugs
classification system. In July, the Commons science and technology
select committee described the current arrangements as "not fit for
purpose". Charities such as DrugScope argued that drugs should be
classified according to the personal and social harm they inflicted.
Even David Cameron believed that Ecstasy should be downgraded from
Class A. On 13 October, however, the new Home Office regime announced
its disagreement, and - while moving to upgrade crystal meth (a
highly addictive form of amphetamine) from Class B to Class A -
decided that things are fine as they are. According to the Home
Office minister Vernon Coaker, "It is important that there is a
coherent system in place to categorise drugs. I believe the existing
classification system does this effectively, allowing for clear
distinctions to be made between drugs."

DrugScope was hugely disappointed. Its chief executive, Martin
Barnes, believes the UK's drugs policies "have clearly failed". "The
current system was introduced 35 years ago and during that time we
have seen a significant increase in levels of drug use and
drug-related harms," he argues. "There is no silver bullet, no ideal
system, but the government should not be afraid to lead a debate as
to whether there are better alternatives."

The problem in working out exactly what to do about drugs is the vast
amount of conflicting data. Despite dire warnings from Jimmy
McGovern's Cracker, Britain's streets don't seem to be awash with
Afghan heroin. Indeed, the most recent official figures, which cover
1998-2003, show that seizures of heroin, like for all drugs except
cocaine, have been falling since 2001. Data from the British Crime
Survey 2005/2006 - also released 13 October - shows levels of crack,
Ecstasy and heroin use remaining stable, with only cocaine on the up.
Despite cocaine use doubling since 1998, just 2.4 per cent of the
population have ever tried the stuff. And surprisingly - or perhaps
obviously - cannabis use has plummeted since the drug was downgraded in 2004.

At the same time, however, the street prices of all drugs are
continuing to fall. Cocaine can be picked up for about UKP45 a gram,
Ecstasy for UKP3 a pill and heroin for roughly UKP40 a gram. Market
deflation is rampant, suggesting that all attempts to restrict supply
have failed. This summer also brought an explosion in illegal outdoor
parties. Police forces in Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Thames Valley,
Norfolk and Essex have reconstituted their "rave units", disbanded in
the mid-1990s after the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
outlawed open-air parties. With dance culture on the rise again,
experts predict that demand for drugs will surge.

The basic problem any drugs policy faces is simple: people are always
going to want to take them. On that, Bowden and Barnes agree. Whether
through alcohol or Ecstasy, most people want to get high now and
then. Barnes believes tackling social deprivation will reduce any
harm. And yet the typical cocaine user - the only growth area of the
drugs market - is white, college-educated and well off. With
terrorist attacks being funded by drug money, maybe Bowden's legal
alternatives theory is worthy of attention.

Bowden has already tested his arguments. He developed his legal highs
from a compound called benzylpiperazine (BZP) - originally
synthesised in 1944 to tackle agricultural parasites - to combat his
and his wife's crystal meth addiction. BZP bonds to the same receptor
as meth, but its effects are softer, making it far less destructive.
In 1999, the New Zealand government was facing a rising crystal meth
problem and took the unusual step of creating a new class for "harm
reduction" drugs, Class D, allowing licensed companies to make and
sell piperazine-based highs. So far, five million BZP pills have been
sold in New Zealand and Bowden's Stargate business has the lion's
share. The company also sells the pills to Britons via its website.

Indeed, BZP is suddenly very widely available in this country. The
chemical is banned in the US, Denmark and Australia, but is legal
here. Companies such as Spiritual High and Everyonedoesit have
started marketing their own versions. Taking a leaf from Bowden's
book, most offer the pills as a "harm minimisation programme". "These
products offer a safe, highly effective and proven alternative to
illicit substances," asserts the website funkpills.co.uk.

Bowden definitely believes this mantra. An astonishing 20 per cent of
the New Zealand population tried party pills when they became legal,
he explains. "The Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and
Evaluation found that 44.1 per cent - 60,000 people - who used party
pills and other illegal drugs stopped using. That's a lot of people
getting their lives back." He wants to develop pills to replace a
variety of illicit substances, starting with MDMA. Initial trials of
his alternative - called Ease - ran into problems in New Zealand
because its active ingredient, methylone, is chemically similar to a
controlled drug. For now, trials have been suspended.

Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacologist at the University of
California, Los Angeles, fears BZP has moved from the lab to the
street far too quickly. "It can take 14 years for a new drug to pass
through all the protocols in the US," he says. He admits, however,
that pharmaceutical companies are researching mood-altering chemicals
- - including one attempt to alter the cocaine molecule chemically and
create an antidepressant chewing gum. To date, Bowden insists, there
has been only one reported death associated with BZP: in Zurich in
2001, a 23-year-old took two tablets as well as Ecstasy and drank
more than ten litres of water in 15 hours. She later died from
hyponatraemia, or water poisoning - the same thing that killed the
school student Leah Betts.

"If you restrict supply, that doesn't decrease demand," Bowden tells
me, as we finish drinking our coffee. "All that happens is that the
price goes up and the rewards are greater. Why don't we reduce demand
instead? Let's say we needed uppers to get us through this meeting
and the cops took away most of our speed. We might then decide to cut
what's left with something, or we might just order a couple of cups
of espresso instead." He grins as I drain my cup. "There you go.
That's demand reduction through a safer alternative for you . . ."

Legally relaxed?

So do these legal "party pills" actually work? I took a BZP pill and
was surprised how potent it was. The physical manifestations of
Ecstasy - dry mouth, hot flushes - were there, but the all-consuming
rush didn't arrive. Instead, there was a general feeling of
well-being, with a little spaciness.

Research

[http://www.shore.ac.nz] The website of the Auckland-based Centre for
Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation carries a paper on
the national experiment with BZP: Legal Party Pill Use In New Zealand.

[http://www.drugscope.org.uk] The UK's leading drugs charity, which
aims "to inform policy and reduce drug-related risk".

[http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary-
committees/science-and-technology- committee/scitech310706.cfm]The
Commons select committee on science and technology's report Drug
Classification: making a hash of it? argues that the current system
is "not fit for purpose".