Meth Madness?

Our Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has advised ministers that it's time for Methamphetamine to be taken seriously and placed in the Class A category - that's the most serious drugs classification carrying the heaviest penalties.

I guess that meth (crystal meth, yabber etc etc) is going to really present a major problem on the enforcement front. It's easy to get the raw materials and it's easy to cook up at home in the kitchen, although having said that it seems that one of the biggest risks is in-house cooking explosions. So enforcement is going to be a real challenge. That means that re-catgorising to a class A is likely to have a negative impact, forcing users away from treatment because they feel they are at greater risk of prosecution if they come forward. It's also likely that with production so easy, many more people will fall in to the user/producer category risking hefty punishment as dealers when in fact they're cooking it up for their own use.

It's the same old story - there are real risks associated with the drug, not least the alleged increase in disinhibition and subsequent unsafe sex plus all the usual harms associated with mental health, injecting and so on. So too, the sludge and crud left behind from the cooking up is horribly toxic and presents a real pollution risk. Thus the governement feels it has to act. But we know full well that class A classification is no deterrent and may have a negative effect.

Watch this space for reports and moral panics from the press. Crystal meth? It's the new crack/cocaine - and look what happened to that.