Mephedrone is the common name for 4-methylmethcathinone. This is a synthetic derivative of cathinone, first synthesized in 1929, and largely forgotten until the early 2000s when Israeli scientists working for an insecticide company started experimenting with cathinones as octopamine analogues to disrupt the brain activity of aphids so make them less damaging to plants. Mephedrone  …

Foreword by Professor David Nutt – “I was removed from my position as Chief Advisor of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in October 2009. A decade later, UK drug policy has done nothing but go backwards. We are currently in a worse position now than we were 10 years ago. However,  …

By Dr. Shanna Marrinan   Since the 2nd of March 2015, it has been illegal to drive with predetermined amounts of particular drugs (including legal medications) in your blood. The limits for these legal and illegal drugs can be located in ‘The Drug Driving (Specified Limits) (England and Wales) Regulations 2014’ (hereafter the 2014 regulations’). However, a handy  …

Foreword by Professor David Nutt Lies, damn lies and vaping statistics- To paraphrase Disraeli’s famous critique of statistics the so-called science of vaping now seems to have become even worse than dishonest. In the past 6 months we have seen across the world a deliberate attempt to mislead the public over the harms of vaping  …

With the 2019 general election fast approaching, a lot of media coverage will focus on each party’s Brexit policies. Drug Science would like to offer a different perspective, what do the six highest polling parties promise to do to address the UK’s failing drug policy. This is what each party has publicly announced relating to  …