Reefa madness

So, this stuff is legal, and it gets you battered, and the state is getting its knickers in a twist and is looking to ban it, by looking for any 'harmful effects'. So let us read on;

But the former head of the Forensic Science Service's drugs intelligence unit, Les King, yesterday told a European drugs conference in Lisbon: "Just a few months ago, it was found that a smoking mixture known as Spice was not the innocuous material it purported to be.

No, never? A legal high gets you high? How can that be? I was going to put it in my supper.

He said that the substance's real psychoactive constituents were synthetic additives, such as ones that mimic the effects of some of the more powerful active ingredients in cannabis.

Shocking!

Quick, let's ban it,that will make it go away. I mean, we can't have people choosing how to relax and forget about the appalling state of things, can we. I suggest you all concentrate on it's harmful effects, so that the Daily Mail will do a sort of 'spaced out zombies raped my cat, then dropped dead in agonising pain' story. Right, what are there harmful effects, then?

Oh, that appears to be lacking from the article. Still, you could always make some up, like they did with BZP.

According to party pill manufacturer Matt Bowden, over 20 million pills containing BZP have been consumed in New Zealand with no available record attributing deaths or lasting injuries to a single ingestion of BZP.^[29] Additionally, a retrospective study carried out at an Auckland emergency department found that BZP presentations only made a minor contribution to their overdose database with most cases not producing any significant toxicity.^[25] Several cases where BZP individually or combined with alcohol or other medicines or illicit drugs resulting in complications exist. One such example is the well publicised case of a combination of BZP and MDMA by a 23 year old from Greymouth, New Zealand. Ben Rodham, a DJ, ingested a combination of BZP and MDMA in February 2007, which nearly resulted in his death. Rodham was put into an induced coma in an effort to prevent him from dying. He later recovered.^[30]

After many millions of doses consumed worldwide, two deaths have been officially recorded in correlation with the use of BZP, although no causal relationship has been proven.^[31][32] In the first case in Zurich in 2001 a 23-year-old took two BZP tablets as well as ecstasy (MDMA) and drank more than 10 litres of water in a 15-hour period, subsequently dying of cerebral edema due to hyponatremia resulting from water intoxication.^[31] In the second case a male 25 year old New Zealander ingested alcohol alongside BZP and MDMA.^[32] The cause of death of this individual has not been released. It is uncertain what role the BZP may have had in these deaths; death from hyponatremia is a well known consequence of drinking too much fluid after consuming MDMA,^[24][33] it is likely that the additional hyponatremic effects from the BZP may have increased the hyponatremic effects from the MDMA, to the point that death resulted.

Ah well, what does science know anyway? Let's just ban it anyway, that will make it go away.

Just like weed, coke, smack, crack, speed, etc etc etc etc etc. Gangsters, start your engines...