The quick legal fix that didn't cure the problem of mephedrone

In February, John Sterling Smith, a 46-year-old Marks and Spencer

checkout worker, suffered a fatal heart attack after taking the drug marketed as a legal high. A rash of other suspected cases followed and, two months later, the drug was banned.

However, as the legislation was rushed through parliament, the many leading medical experts who called for calm were ignored. While mephedrone, they said, was certainly dangerous, banning the substance was not the answer. They pointed out that manufacturers could easily bypass the law by tweaking drug's chemical make-up and medical journal The Lancet accused politicians of "contaminating" science, by bowing to pressure without waiting for detailed research into legal highs to be completed.

Since the ban came into force, a much clearer picture has emerged and it's one that makes uncomfortable viewing for those who hoped the strong arm of the law would be enough to send mephedrone manufacturers packing.

Toxicology tests have showed two Scunthorpe teenagers whose deaths, originally linked to mephedrone, were cited as reason to bring in the legislation, had not taken the drug and for many of the online companies, set up to sell illegal highs, it has been business as usual.

One Leeds-based internet site, which closed shortly before the ban was introduced, was not long after directing users to a new web page. It wasn't alone and new research by three universities has confirmed what many people thought. Mephedrone and its myriad of sister drugs have not gone away.

According to the joint study by Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool University and Lancaster University, many of the alternatives to mephedrone now available on the internet are just as risky and actually contain the same substance or related chemicals.

The researchers bought 17 drugs from 12 UK-based websites over a six-week period just after mephedrone, also known as Meow Meow, Bubbles and M-CAT, was reclassified as a Class B drug. The results showed that

while none of the substances were called mephedrone, they contained many of the same cathinones compounds from which it is made.

"It's the same substance, just a different label," says Simon Brandt, senior lecturer in analytical chemistry at John Moores. "One of the most prominently discussed second generation products is Energy 1 (also called NRG-1 or naphyrone).

"These products are offered as legal substitutes for the recently criminalised 'legal highs', but they actually turned out to be related to mephedrone and some of them were just, in fact, mephedrone.

"This suggests that both consumers and online sellers are, most likely without knowledge, at risk of criminalisation and potential harm.

"This has important health and criminal justice consequences that will require carefully thought out responses and further investigation. Nobody knows what the health effects of these mixtures are, or what they could be."

The findings come as little surprise to groups like Transform Drug Policy Federation. The philosophy of the organisation has always been regulation rather than prohibition of drugs and they were among the first to call for calm when mephedrone suddenly became front page news. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is due to publish

advice today on NRG-1 and while it is widely expected to recommend the drug is banned, Transform remains unconvinced such a move will have the

desired effect.

"Education is and always has been the key," says a spokesman for

Transform. "We need to stop kidding ourselves that simply by making a substance illegal we will necessarily reduce consumption. People take

drink and drugs for many different reasons. If we are to address the real underlying issues we need to stop assuming that the only reason they take mephedrone and similar substances is because they are legal and banning them will make the problem disappear as if by magic."