Meow-meow is dead, long live…ahhh, let’s just call it Monumental Dumb Ass, Inc
April 19, 2010
The UK has now made the 4-MMC (Meow-Meow, mephedrone) compound illegal to possess as of April 16, 2010. It will be interesting to see what pops up next as the latest waiting-to-be-criminalized recreational drug.
Apparently MDAI (5,6-Methylenedioxy-2-aminoindane; Wikipedia) is a hot prospect in the UK drug user stakes. I dunno, the go-to user forum thread on MDAI doesn’t make it look all that promising but who knows. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Legal sourcing has a way of trumping the actual quality of the high, as we’ve seen with mephedrone in the UK in the past year. My read on the user descriptions (such as they are) sure doesn’t make it seem as if mephedrone is as fun as MDMA. The primary draw seems to be that it was a reasonably good high but more importantly it was legal and available. Hmm, now where are those cannabis fans who claim that legality and ready availability of cannabis has nothing to do with use patterns?
DrugMonkey 
April 19, 2010 at 7:44 pm
I mean… people will sniff glue or permanent markers just because it’s legal. I’m fairly sure the high produced by these isn’t particularly good.
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April 20, 2010 at 8:44 am
I wouldn’t be so quick to call this the end of mephedrone. The user reports I’ve seen and heard suggests that it’s as binge-inducing as cocaine, and the only real complaint about the short-term effects was the horrible taste.
I’d not be surprised if this one hangs around for a while, especially if it manages to remain less expensive than comparable quality MDMA. Crappy pills were a major driver in the birth of the meph outbreak, and as far as I know they’re still around.
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April 20, 2010 at 9:13 am
To your comment about usage patterns, it seems to me judging by how many people have tried cannabis — what, nearly half the population? And how many people have tried smoking cigarettes, the legality of a given drug can put a dent in usage, but the patterns o use are more dependent on how expensive a drug is; what it does (is the high any good) and a bunch of other cultural factors.
That is, cocaine is illegal and expensive, so not as many people try it. It’s also pretty additive tho.
LSD is cheaper, illegal, and a pain to synthesize without a pretty sophisticated lab; the profit margins aren’t good relative to cocaine or meth; the high isn’t as much fun (I liken it to the difference between art films and Michal Bay movies). It’s not, as far as I know, addictive the way cocaine is (or nicotine). So not many people have tried LSD.
Nicotine: we’ve all tried it. (Well, a load of people). Cheap. Addictive. Available. Usage has declined in part because of a huge antismoking campaign.
Cannabis is expensive relative to nicotine, but illegal, and yet loads of people have tried it even though the high isn’t as intense as say, meth, which has a comparable price.
Alcohol: seems to be steady among teens, for whom it’s illegal. Addictive? For some people. We tried making it illegal once; it didn’t work in part because it’s so easy to make.
Then there’s inhalants, which if you made those illegal — well, that would be pretty funny as nearly every product under my sink could qualify there. But inhalants’ use is nowhere near as wide as tobacco — even among teens who are notoriously stupid. (Heck, I was).
Usage patterns for all of these substances are all over the map. There’s a vastly different cultural stigma (or lack thereof) to cannabis and tobacco from heroin, meth or cocaine.
And of course, alcohol and tobacco have a lobby.
I’m not for legalizing everything and anything; I happen to like cannabis though it’s been a few years. I also like good cabernet. I wouldn’t drive after bingeing on either one.
I also wonder about making various substances illegal as people discover how to get high with them; certainly buying cold medicine has become a bit of a pain to do. (I mean come on, if I were making meth I wouldn’t be buying itty bitty packets; it’s simpler to falsify an order from a bodega). Yet claritin (once a prescription only drug) is now OTC. Go figure.
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