Speaking just hours after the “legal high” was implicated in another death – that of Lois Waters, 24, from Yorkshire – Professor Les Iversen, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, told politicians that such drugs were “amphetamines by another name”.
He also described as “pretty unethical” plans by Liverpool John Moore University to recruit 50 human guinea pigs to take part in mephedrone tests.
The advisory council is due to report to ministers on Monday, after which the Government can consider a ban. It would then be several months before changes to the law come into effect.
Mephedrone and other related substances – known collectively on the street as meow meow, moonshine or plant food – are expected to be placed in Class B, meaning a prison sentence of up to 14 years for anyone caught dealing them.
Currently the drugs are legal so long as they are not marketed for human consumption. Online vendors brand them as plant food or bath salts, but they are commonly taken as a substitute for ecstasy or cocaine.
Addressing the Home Affairs Committee at Westminster, Prof Iverson said deaths linked to the drug were “a tragedy”. A local variant of mephedrone was blamed for the death last week of Jordan Kiltie, 19, from Ayrshire.
Two teenagers from Scunth-orpe, North Lincolnshire, died after taking mephedrone and other drugs, including heroin substitute methadone. Police said a 46-year-old man in Hove, Sussex, also suffered a fatal heart-attack as a result of a mephedrone overdose.
Though their legality means they are not as likely to be cut with other substances as most street drugs, the strength of mephedrone-style products means they are easy to overdose on, and they have been linked to circulation problems, nausea and even psychosis.
Home Affairs Committee chairman Keith Vaz said he intended to write to Home Secretary Alan Johnson to complain about the delay in banning mephedrone.
The Westminster Government has been criticised by Holyrood for failing to outlaw the drug immediately, but Prof Iversen said yesterday that a temporary ban while the evidence is considered would not be effective.
Because there are at least six different chemicals sold under names such as meow meow or moonshine, he said, they would all have to be banned, rather than simply mephedrone.
A study proposed by scientists in Liverpool was also criticised after it attempted to recruit 50 volunteers to take part in mephedrone trials.
Representatives of Liverpool John Moore University declined to return calls to The Herald, but local reports said doctors wanted to talk to people who were already using the drug and were neither encouraging mephedrone uptake nor condoning its use.
Police yesterday issued a fresh warning on the dangers of mephedrone after Ms Waters died at a friend’s home, apparently after bingeing on the drug over the weekend. The results of a toxicology test are not yet known and police said other substances had been found near Ms Waters’s body.
Detective Chief Inspector Nigel Costello, who is leading the inquiry into the Ms Waters’s death, said people should not be fooled into thinking mephedrone is safe just because it’s not illegal. Strathclyde Police have issued a similar warning.
Most of Britain’s mephedrone is manufactured in China and imported as a “research chemical”.
An investigation by The Herald’s sister title, the Sunday Herald, this week revealed a similar legal high drug was mass-produced in Ayrshire by a firm called Herbal Essence Ltd.
