Series: Drugs Uncovered: Part 17 Of 17

THE NEXT BIG HIGH?

Attempts To Dodge The Law Meet Cutting-Edge Science In New Drug Fashions

Recently a handful of off-white tablets called Blue Mystic were found by
French customs at La Chapelle in the Ardennes. The discovery was not a
major drugs haul but it pointed to the possibility of a new, European,
source of manufacture.

Two months earlier three-and-a-half Blue Mystic tablets had been found in a
London club's amnesty bin. This could signal the birth of what may well be
the drug of tomorrow and raises questions over how British laws might deal
with it.

Blue Mystic or 2C-T-7 as it's officially known (street names include T-7,
7-Up and Tripstacy) originated in California, designed as a possible
therapeutic drug. It has since found underground notoriety on the US dance
scene, and been held responsible for a number of teen deaths. Now it is
finding its way into Britain.

Is it legal? This is where things get complicated. In the US, press concern
centred on the fact that T-7 seemed to be perfectly legal. As for Britain,
it appears to slip down a dark alley of blurred legality. When The Observer
approached the Home Office and the Department of Health's Medicine Control
Agency, the bodies which deal, respectively, with the Misuse of Drugs Act
1971 and the Medicines Act 1968 - the two pillars of British drug laws -
neither had heard of T-7.

After some checking, 2C-T-7 was found not to be a controlled substance
under the Misuse of Drugs Act and therefore legal to possess. Nor is it
listed under the Medicines Act: it 'does not hold marketing authorisations
in the UK and has not been licensed for use in clinical trials', says the
MCA. This means that while illegal to supply as a medicinal substance, it
could be supplied - as it has been through websites in the US - as an
'experimental, raw material' of a 'non-consumptive, non-ingestive,
non-food, non-culinary, non-medicinal nature'.

But what makes T-7 important - besides pointing to trends in the creation
and use of illicit substances - is how it highlights (along with other
similar substances) the rather clumsy, arbitrary nature of British drug
laws and points up the laws' grey area. Ecstasy (MDMA) is outlawed as a
Class A substance; T-7 is completely uncontrolled and borderline legal;
Prozac is heralded as a wonder drug; yet the three drugs alter the brain's
chemistry in similar ways.

In the US there is a curiously sloppy amendment to their Anti-Drug Abuse
Act (1986) called the Controlled Substance Analog Enforcement Act (or more
commonly, the Designer Drug Act). This law was brought in as a catch-all to
mop up any future substances with compositions or effects similar to
currently outlawed drugs, which might otherwise slip through current laws.
Under this act, T-7 could theoretically be outlawed if it is proved to be
an analogue, but whether the law is actually applicable - considering the
wording of the vending website's disclaimer - remains to be seen. There is
no British equivalent of the Designer Drug Act, but it is accepted that all
hallucinogens are automatically classified as Class A drugs.

The search for new drugs, and especially ones that tiptoe around current
laws, is ongoing. Though now it is felt by many pharmacologists that the
creation of new substances from scratch has become far less likely simply
through the exhaustion of possibilities. What is more likely is for a
previously discovered substance, created through bona fide medical
research, to be uncovered in an obscure academic journal and recreated in
an underground lab in much the same way as T-7.

As those on the fringes of the drug-using pack continue their search for
something new, the Law has difficulty keeping up with the underground
chemists. There have been attempts to speed up official recognition of new
substances. In 1993 the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction (EMCDDA) was set up in Lisbon. It is meant as an early warning
system that keeps track of the drug situation across Europe and provides an
information-sharing platform for individual countries within the EU.

But despite these attempts to cover all bases, drug trends are fluid and
unpredictable. No matter how distasteful some might find it, fashion works
in drugs as much as it works in other 'consumer' areas. What is big this
year may well be shunned the next. Or, alternatively, this year's drug
craze could be the next decade-defining drug. What is certain, though, is
that wherever grey areas in the Law exist, someone, somewhere, will be
exploiting them.