Speaker’s wife ‘tempted to try legal high while I can’

Mexxy, which is sold as an alternative to ketamine and has been linked to two deaths, will be banned within days while the Government’s drugs advisers consider whether it should be permanently controlled.

Mrs Bercow assured her more than 45,000 followers on Twitter she would not actually buy any, but admitted she was tempted and “now obsessed with the stuff, despite never having heard of it 1/2 hr ago”.

“Am I the only one now slightly tempted to try mexxy before it becomes illegal? I won’t, obvs,” she wrote.

Later, she added: “Oh, the mexxy ban is only ‘temporary’. What’s that all about? (Am now obsessed with the stuff, despite never having heard of it 1/2 hr ago).”

The high-profile wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow made the comments less than two hours after the temporary ban, which will last for up to 12 months, was announced by the Home Office.

It follows concerns that two people whose bodies were found in Leicestershire in February may have taken some form of the drug after buying it over the internet.

Police warned people not to take mexxy, which was advertised and sold as a safe alternative to the class C drug ketamine, after the bodies of a 59-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man were found in Leicester and Melton Mowbray on February 11 and 12, respectively.

Under the new temporary banning order, anyone caught making, supplying or importing mexxy, or methoxetamine, will face up to 14 years in prison and an unlimited fine under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Home Office said.

Simple possession will not be an offence, but police and border officials will be allowed to search or detain anyone they suspect of having the drug and seize, keep or dispose of a substance they suspect is mexxy.

Since the drug was referred to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) earlier this month, the advisers have presented further evidence that its use can lead to “significant additional toxicity”, including agitation, a faster heart rate and higher blood pressure, as well as unsteadiness on the feet.

It is not the first time Mrs Bercow’s actions have raised eyebrows in Westminster.

She has also told her followers how she bought an illegal TV smart card in a pub and was criticised last year for appearing to capitalise on her husband’s position as she posed for a photograph clad in just a bed sheet, with the House of Commons in the background.

Mrs Bercow also appeared in the first Celebrity Big Brother after the show moved to its new home on Channel 5 and then in a spin-off, When Paddy Met Sally, with former housemate – and the show’s eventual winner – Paddy Doherty.