Mephedrone Violence Echoes Angel Dust

Published May 14, 2014 | By skrufff

Drug experts in Wales reported this week that consumption of mephedrone have collapsed throughout the region after users became deterred by its side effects.

Sands Cymru Ifor Glyn said mephedrone use exploded after it was criminalised following a manic mainstream media campaign which promoted and rebranded the previously legal substance as ‘meow meow’ though said in the last six months ‘it’s disappeared’ from the scene.

“It affects the way people look really quickly, a significant loss of weight and people getting quite violent,” he told the BBC, “Over time people see how damaging it is and move on to other drugs – that’s the only explanation we can give,” he said (bbc: http://bbc.in/1lmv7xk )

The media demonization of mephedrone matched the hysterical reportage which led to America’s People Magazine branding PCP- aka ‘Angel Dust’ – ‘America’s Most Dangerous New Drug’ in the late 70s.

PCP users, including first time experimenters, risked succumbing to ‘bizarre or violent behaviour’ the then hugely influential magazine warned.

“Violence appears to stem primarily from chronic use. However, it is sometimes seen with limited exposure,” San Francisco drug expert Steven Lerner told the magazine in a lengthy feature in which he declared that earlier press reports of PCP violence were ‘not exaggerated’.

“Users liken the feeling to no feeling—a living death . . . Periods of bizarre, violent, suicidal, homicidal and amnesiac behavior may persist for several years,” he added.(People: http://bit.ly/T1oI4a )

35 years later, Time magazine published an article examining ‘Myths and Facts about Angel Dust’ following press reports suggesting US football star Aaron Hernandez committed murder due to PCP, an assertion they concluded was false.

“Research suggests that, like alcohol, it mainly increases aggressive behaviour in those already prone to it,” Time Magazine reported.

“The drug can induce psychotic delusions and paranoid behaviour. But most users remain unthreatening in the face of these disorienting experiences, even placid.” (Time; http://ti.me/1qC9eSJ )

http://bit.ly/T1oI4a (‘So Much for Cocaine and LSD—Angel Dust Is America’s Most Dangerous New Drug, September 04, 1978)