CHEMICAL REACTIONARIES

So What If Students Are Making Ecstasy? At Least They Are Better Trained
Than Many Dealers On The Streets

In order to pay off exorbitant student loans (yeah, yeah, tell that to the
judge), young graduates are increasingly turning to the manufacture of
psychoactive drugs. Well, not all students, naturally - English students
couldn't manufacture anything but an Adornian reading of Donnie Darko. No,
this is entirely chemistry students: they know what they're doing, they
have peerless access to labs and materials, and they're very easy to spot.
The criminal fraternity just has to go into its local campus and look for
the person with the chemistry hair.

Most importantly, they make extremely good E. As Keith Bowes, an
ex-manufacturer now in prison, wrote in his (ill-advised) E-letter, "this
is twice as good as anything you'll get nowadays. Please respect this stuff
as it is pure. No heroically munching half a gram, because you will die."

This quality issue might sound like a side dish in the rather more pressing
concern of youths exploiting the gift of knowledge to bend the minds of
their fellow students, but in fact it is key. This is not a case of
students wilfully breaking the law to flex their little biceps. It's not a
case of criminals approaching the weak and vulnerable, and bullying them
into illegality with the judicious use of a Tony Soprano face. It's a job
being undertaken by the people who will do it best.

It makes perfect sense. It's about a million times better than the American
way, whereby poor students pay off debts by cleaning for rich ones. If you
were going to go out and take an E, who would you want it made by? Someone
with four years of experience? Or a pair of jokers with some coke, some
toothpaste and a pill machine?

In the early days of E, everyone used to talk wistfully about Amsterdam,
where every club had a little chemist booth, manned voluntarily by people
who could break down the composition of your pill for you - if it was
mainly aspirin, you'd know about it (although the point was the
preservation of clubber health, it wasn't like a consumer rights
organisation). If those volunteers were actually making the E, imagine how
much more efficient it would all be. Plus, it would make us even more
progressive than the stories about progressive Holland, which are all made
up anyway, and only people like me believe.

Naturally, far from applauding this solitary good thing to come out of the
iniquitous student loan system (well, kind of), this will spark outrage,
probably enough to result in universities having to station dogs in
laboratories.

The good E will disappear from the streets and everyone will reacquaint
themselves with the rubbish E that does nothing apart from give you a vague
sense of unease and make you want to run for buses. People will take five
at a time; then some rogue good Es, of the type made by Keith, will appear
on the market, someone will take five of those and die, and the police will
say "well, there you go, E kills."

It is powerfully reminiscent of the situation in Manchester in the early,
heady days of E. About 18 months after the E explosion, there occurred a
number of gun crimes. The on dit was that drugs lead to gun crime. But
Sarah Champion, editor of Disco Biscuits (an anthology of E-related
essays), said that it was slightly more complex than that. A lot of drug
dealers had been arrested and sentenced. Their businesses, rather than
rotting away, had been taken over by their younger siblings - feckless
14-year-olds going "wow, cool gun. I wonder what happens if I pull this."
So, sure, logically speaking, the drugs have led to the gun crimes; the
police are right and the dealers are wrong; but couldn't it all have been
handled slightly better? Couldn't there have been less emphasis on right
and wrong, and more on how to make things slightly less dangerous for young
nitwits?

The debate over drug legislation has been rehearsed many times, but it's
time to debate it again, having accepted some rock-solid truths. One, E is
not going to go away. Nor is coke, by the way. It doesn't matter how
illegal they are. Two, you know the status of dope, now? With politicians
admitting to Sunday papers that they've smoked it, just to sound a bit
cool, with policemen deciding unilaterally that it might be illegal in the
rest of the country, but it's not on Coldharbour Lane? That's what E will
be like in 20 years. No question. Three, we medicate for everything - we've
got to the point where we medicate boisterous children for being bored in
boring situations (like school). We medicate ourselves to stimulate
moderate happiness every day of the week. If we think we can stand in the
way of medicating for extreme happiness at a weekend, then swimming against
the tide doesn't begin to describe it. We are mad.

And say you've accepted all this, but you still think keeping criminal
status will limit, if not end, the use of these drugs. Maybe you're right.
But save your horsepower and your prison sentences for people who are
making terrible drugs and feeding bleach and ketamine to the vulnerable
youths who just wanted a bit of MDMA. Well-trained graduates with a respect
for drugs and a sense of civic pride are exactly what this industry needs.