Mephedrone petition to be handed to 10 Downing Street (From York Press)
Get in touch: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting YORK to 80360 or send an email»
This campaign by The Press intends to make the drug mephedrone illegal.
The drug, commonly known as bubbles, meow, meow or M-CAT, which can cost as little as £3 a dose, is becoming increasingly popular among young people in North and East Yorkshire, but its effects can be devastating.
Phone Jennifer Bell at The Press on 01904 653051 ext 315 or email jennifer.bell@thepress.co.uk for further details.
Mephedrone petition to be handed to 10 Downing Street
9:04am Monday 29th March 2010 in
-
- By Jennifer Bell » jennifer.bell@thepress.co.uk
TODAY, after ten weeks of campaigning, The Press will hand its petition to ban the danger drug mephedrone to 10 Downing Street.
Since we launched our Menance Of Mephedrone campaign in January, petition signatures and letters of support have poured into our Walmgate offices.
Today we will take our 700-signature petition and dossier to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s London residence, along with an open letter (see below) on behalf of our readers and our community.
It is expected that later today, Mr Brown will be handed a report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which will recommend that the drug, also known as M-Cat or meow meow, be made a Class B substance.
We will be joined by John Grogan, Labour MP for Selby, and Robert Goodwill, Conservative MP for Scarbrough and Whitby.
We present the petition as evidence continues to be given to The Press about the danger drug.
One user, who doesn’t want to be named, said: “I have had a bad experience with mephedrone. I decided to try this legal high two months ago. It started on the Saturday and I could not stop until the Monday when I literally collapsed; I now think how lucky I am to be alive. I did not have to receive hospital treatment but I had almost all of the side affects I have read about.”
We launched our campaign following the collapse of a 17-year-old student at Woldgate College in Pocklington after he took the drug, an increasingly popular substitute for cocaine and ecstasy.
Rt Hon Gordon Brown
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister,
In January this year a teenager from our area became seriously ill in school after taking the so-called legal high mephedrone.
The concern of his head teacher and the reaction of parents when we broke this news was so acute we felt that, as a community newspaper, we needed to act.
We were particularly worried that young people might feel the drug was safe because it was not illegal: yet it had not even been tested on animals. The risks associated with it were unfathomable,
but people were being taken ill, and reports suggested it had been linked to deaths.
Our ‘Menace of Mephedrone’ campaign, launched in response to these concerns, aims to get the substance banned and to raise awareness of its potential dangers.
Hundreds of people have signed our petition and many people have come forward to tell us of their fears for loved ones whose lives are unravelling under the influence of this drug.
Sadly, we were too late for Lois Waters, the young woman whose death in our area a week ago came after taking mephedrone. It was also too late for Nick Smith and Louis Wainwright, of
Lincolnshire, whose grieving parents have backed our campaign.
Today you are due to receive the findings of your experts into the dangers posed by this drug. We know you are minded to take action, and on behalf of our readers, we urge you to outlaw
mephedrone.
Yours sincerely
Steve Hughes
Managing Editor
The Press, York
Comments(19)
redr
says...
10:56am Mon 29 Mar 10
hifive
says...
10:58am Mon 29 Mar 10
consumer
says...
11:05am Mon 29 Mar 10
And apart from anything else there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that mephedrone has ever been linked to a death in the UK.
Phantom1974
says...
11:17am Mon 29 Mar 10
D_Dutch
says...
12:17pm Mon 29 Mar 10
-
Kids will do it regardless. Ban this, and they'll find something else. And let them i say - if they're foolish enough to snort something which has big bold letter on the packet saying "Not for human consumption", then that's their risk and their choice.
-
Although, i've yet to hear the definitive evidence that Mephedrone has been the sole cause of any of these deaths.
mike1410
says...
12:24pm Mon 29 Mar 10
1 - According to the Home Office drugs awareness site there have been NO deaths soley attributed the M-Cat in the UK. So whay are we continually being bombarded with inuendoes (false), that this drug caused the deaths of at least 4 people.
2 - There is a wholly unjustified hysterical barrage of misinformation form the local media (papers AND radio). Please get your facts straight. After all, a member of the public publishing such information, could be sued for lible.
3 - Read the HO drug information site and then rethink your comments. Then print your reasons for being so wayward with the official evidence.
4 - The death of Lois Waters was horrible and all sympathy to the family at this difficult time. Rest in Peace Lois.
Comments re the Drugs advice panel. They are all highly respected persons in their own specialist fields. The work they do is VOLUNTARY and no payments are made to them. This means they are not beholden to any minister and advice they give is true, sensible and honest.
Please let this issue be settled with proper discussion and not swayed by emotion, self interest, knee-jerk decisions and political cynicism
As for the campaign to close the Post - rubbish, it is the senior staff who need to be replaced and not the hardworking general staff on the paper
regards
Mike
Prob
says...
12:53pm Mon 29 Mar 10
.
Must be moments away from all these comments being wiped and turned off...
TooRad
says...
1:11pm Mon 29 Mar 10
I have the utmost respect Prof Nutt and the other scientists who refused to just be spokesmen for the party line.
.
The latest to leave, Dr Polly Taylor, is quoted as saying:
“I feel that there is little more we can do to describe the importance of ensuring that advice is not subjected to a desire to please ministers or the mood of the day’s Press.”
That about sums it up.
When the act was introduced it came with caveats, such as the provision of an advisory body, to ensure proper implementation for the good of society. It is more than obvious that the government don't like this little inconvenience and would rather the ACMD was just a sham mouthpiece for policy. Which it will be when the members with integrity all leave and are replaced with more compliant members like Les Iverson.
.
Luckily for The Press, the government are used to liars, being accomplished liars themselves, so they won't mind too much when they receive the "petition" with its untruthful first paragraph:
In January this year a teenager from our area became seriously ill in school after taking the so-called legal high mephedrone.
*cough* AND THE BLEEDING ALCOHOL AND HEROIN SUBSTITUTE! *cough*
.
For shame Press.
You are an embarrassment.
Your paltry 700 signatures is a measure of just how well thought of your cynical campaign is. Mr Brown will be laughing his dour little socks off at York, won't he?
.
So, yeah, I agree with what everyone else said. Especially the removing comments part.
Silver
says...
1:14pm Mon 29 Mar 10
hifive
says...
1:15pm Mon 29 Mar 10
Silver
says...
1:43pm Mon 29 Mar 10
hifive wrote:True but then again The Press used to think this drug made your arms turn purple and didn't think that this if it had been true would have made it very easy to spot who had taken the thing? After all they bought that hook line and sinker.
The irony is, if they hadn't removed all the comments over the last few weeks, there could have eventually been more than 700 people opposing the campaign! It's a shame we have to read the real news in the comments section rather than the article itself.
mockaroundtheclock
says...
5:37pm Mon 29 Mar 10
hifive
says...
6:00pm Mon 29 Mar 10
Phantom1974
says...
6:09pm Mon 29 Mar 10
redr
says...
7:14pm Mon 29 Mar 10
TooRad
says...
8:07pm Mon 29 Mar 10
THE drug mephedrone is to be made illegal meaning The Press has won its campaign to get the so-called “legal high” outlawed
So the most recent story is reported as we all predicted. Even down to the disallowing of comments.
.
Let me be the first to say kudos and big re-speck to our campaigning local paper for this massive victory. Let's face it without their endless dedication to creativity of truth and those all-important 700 signatures, I think it could have gone the other way - it was looking like the home
office were actually going to make Mephedrone compulsory. For kids. With their breaktime milk.
Thank goodness the lobbying behemoth that is The Press wielded the power of its huge support and intervened before it was too late.
.
Right, now that I've said all that I need to get busy with my own campaign which I've started.
For your information I'm campaigning for the sun to rise in the morning, I've heard that night can make your arms and legs go purple and you could collapse from it if you also down a bottle of white lightning, some valium and put a bag on your head which you previously filled with gas from the hob. And some anthrax.
Support is pouring in to my headquarters, so far there's the milkman and that old lady who does the flowers at the church.
I'm confident of my impending victory.
Rsend
says...
11:42pm Mon 29 Mar 10
Phantom1974
says...
9:21am Tue 30 Mar 10
More The Menace of Mephedrone stories
- New warning over mephedrone
- Mephedrone likely to have been a factor in death of Malton woman Lois Waters, inquest told
- Mephedrone: The aftermath
- Number of mephedrone dealers ‘will fall by half’
- School head ‘delighted’ by mephedrone campaign
- Was The Press right to call for a ban on mephedrone?
- Eight held in purge on mephedrone
- Police seize Mephedrone worth £30k
- Police urge anyone in possession of mephedrone to dispose of it before ban
- MP's mephedrone modification fears
Most popular
Local Information
Enter your postcode, town or place name
xmob says...
9:36am Mon 29 Mar 10
I wasn't aware that the post mortem results were out.
In other news, somebody dies somewhere after drinking a cup of tea. Let's ban tea!
Like so many commenters before me, I'm not condoning the use of mephedrone. But, let's at least learn more about it before taking action.
The resignation of Dr Polly Taylor isn't going to help matters.
Oh, and stop removing/disabling comments when people start to disagree with the views of The Editor.