Proper Charlie

It was not surprising to learn the toxicology tests from those Scunthorpe boys, who had reportedly overdosed on Mephedrone, found, er, they hadn't. The drug is an amphetamine which is rarely the cause of drug death even when combined with heavy drinking. However, it was surprising to find no trace of the drug at all in their systems.

Turn your mind back two months and we had Govt Ministers and their shadows making tough "whatever it takes" statements to control the drug and enforce the law "to avert such tragic consequences occurring in the future." Chief Inspector Mark Oliver of Lincolnshire police held a press conference on 16 March and told the world Mephedrone had killed those lads. He set in motion the full media hysteria which led to its control just four weeks later.

One would have assumed the police investigation had uncovered identifiable traces or wraps or some connection to a Mephedrone supplier. Apparently not, Oliver's wild assertions sound like they were based on hearsay evidence from someone who doesn't know the difference between Mephedrone and the opiote substitute Methadone.

If ever there were a case for taking the Misuse of Drugs Act out of the police Department of the Home Office and transfered to Health, this is it. The police have no more qualification to start pontificating on essentially scientific matters than the febrile politicians. It is a source of national shame we have come distrust the scientists' analysis on drugs and rather adhere to the words of inept and impotent officials who simply panic with fear.

Previous Home Secretaries like Jacqui Smith hardly helped; she was able to misrepresent scientists like David Nutt as eccentric and out of touch with the real concerns of worried parents. What utter hogwash. For a start scientists are often parents too, but their intellectual discipline has allowed them to separate their individual anxieties with a rational view of the level of risk which can be moderated by credible educational messages.

The Government's reaction to new threats is hugely exaggerated and their attempts at education are woefully inaccurate. TalktoFrank's current campaign on cocaine features a drug mule/dog Pablo. There can be very few users of coke who would associate the drug with a cuddly puppy being sliced open in a dingy basement as Frank would have us believe.

The fast-track 'banning' of Mephedrone was based on a clearly false premise. Drugs policy has a false founding principle that it is the illegality and threat from the flat-foots which is the best way to deter drug use. That doesn't mean the answer is legalisation. But the current approach is ineffective to the point of being delusional.