leftfield bumper competition: spot the lies!

Leftfield would be the last blog to ever suggest that The Sun newspaper, as a bastion of journalistic integrity and proud defender of the truth, would ever stoop so low to tell lies on their front page. As such, we were utterly shocked and OUTRAGED today on our stroll to the shops to learn that not only is the government in the ‘GRIP’ of the unions (presumably the same union who’s action Gordon Brown described the other day as ‘unjustified and deplorable’) but that drugs are killing OUR CHILDREN! But hey look, a suspiciously free one pound bet!
Anyway, arriving home, I decided to do a little bit further investigation into this claim that ‘meow meow’, ie. the quasi-legal drug mephedrone (or bubbles, m-cat or ‘plant food’) ‘killed’ two teenagers.
While clearly absolutely tragic – two boys aged 18 and 19 collapsed and died on Monday following a night-out – what follows is less set-in-stone evidence that ‘drone lay behind their deaths, but more tabloid and police scaremongering and much stretching of the facts to suit their agenda that mephedrone = mega dangerous and needs banned straight away. Note also that the government’s Advisory Council on Drugs is expected to reach a decision on the drug within the next two weeks – if there was ever a time for ramping up the tabloid campaign to ‘BAN’ it, this is it.
In this vein, the article quotes Detective Chief Inspector Mark Oliver, who tells us that “We need to get the message across that this drug is dangerous and you may die if you take it”.

It seems that the specific circumstances of this case are slightly more complicated though – the Sun reports that “Officers believe both lads…  also had access to heroin substitute methadone which they used to bring them down from the high of mephedrone.”
In other words, that mephedrone may have  ’contributed to’ and been ‘linked to’ these deaths, is being taken and used by the Sun to mean that is absolutely, 100% lay behind them.

Chances are that the government will seek to ban M-Cat from the end of the month. The result of this will not be an end to its use, nor will it stop tragedies such as the one which sparked this latest burst of tabloid hysteria. Dr David Nutt, the man who was sacked as the government’s chief advisor on drugs last year for his inconvenient scientific opinions, has said that government should not rush to ban mephedrone before a full, scientific examination of the drug and its effects has been made. Instead, he urges them to classify it as ‘Class D’ drug, which would be legal for sale to adults, but strongly regulated – just like tobacco and alcohol are now, with health warnings and quality controls. But any open debate is being stifled by a media and government created atmosphere surrounding this issue that would rather disregard scientific evidence and force out those expressing views that actually make sense – like Dr Nutt.
Instead, we’re drip-fed absolute bollocks about meow meow being behind ’180 children off sick from school’, which as this excellent piece on the Enemies of Reason blog shows, then goes onto to say “It is not clear how the authorities know the drug is involved or whether the figure is the result of a single incident.” In other words, it almost certainly isn’t involved – but hey, who cares about facts, HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN DIEING FROM DRUGS!!!!!

For real advice on the ins and outs of drugs, SSY recommends reading the Daily Mail, who know their meow meow from their crack crack. Only joking, obviously… for ACTUAL decent advice, check out this website: http://www.crew2000.org.uk/ and for the mephedrone advice page, click here.