As an A&E doctor at the pointy end of all the fall out from this I can’t help but agree with some of the other posters on here with regard to legalisation of some of the other drugs.
It’s my own personal belief that we missed the boat on this about 15-20 years ago. Legalisation of MDMA (a drug that is incredibly safe in comparison to many others out there – and even many other recreational pastimes) would probably have avoided all of this problem of people taking huge quantities of unknown chemicals in an effort to get high.
In the dozen or so years I have been working in A&E I have seen thousands of smoking related illnesses, thousands of alcohol related injuries and illnesses and now hundreds of ‘legal high’ related admissions. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of MDMA related admissions to the assorted A&Es around the North East I have worked in. Most of whom were having an acute anxiety issues related to the drug use, the others a reaction to other, unknown substances known to be contaminating local MDMA supplies.
If we’d egalised it we could regulate it, know the doses and know the addatives. There would be no need to have even invented ‘legal highs’ as they would already exist….. However, now the box is open….
Here endeth the sermon.