Going Up and Coming Down from Drugs and Alcohol
It doesn't take a genius to work out that staying up till 6am listening to dance music at an ear-splitting volume would not only be unenjoyable without some kind of mind-altering stimulant, but a painful test of endurance. Most people in big nightclubs are on drugs. The clubs know that: They know that not many people will be buying drinks.
Most of them have in-house dealers too, so they can sort out their DJs. Bigger DJs put requests for drugs on their rider. But there's still a stork charade, with the venue covered in posters promising to eject drug users and bouncers searching punters — but not too thoroughly. The pretence is that this could all be above board.
Drug withdrawal
I suppose the reason for this false picture of drug-taking is that most people don't take drugs. The statistics show that only a small fraction of the UK population are regular drugs users, and a smaller fraction still do anything harder than weed. But drug use is not spread evenly across the country, nor across age groups. In my demographic — under 30, living in London, job in the creative industries, disposable income — almost everyone is a recreational drugs user.
Where I grew up in south London, it was pretty uncommon to find someone who didn't at least smoke weed. The children of more middle-class parents were taking cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and mephedrone almost every weekend. These were not reprobates ruining their lives: We would go to raves in places such as Camberwell and Hackney Wick, to warehouse venues where almost no one was over White powders flowed as freely as the Fanta Fruit Twist and Malibu we were drinking.
Festivals played a big part, too. Parents, even quite strict ones who wouldn't dream of letting their kids out past midnight, were happy to send their kids to music festivals, perhaps because of the reverent music-focused coverage in the media. Half of them barely leave the campsite. Festivals are drugs playgrounds where teenagers experiment with copious amounts of uppers in presumably quite dangerous combinations. Some of the best moments of my life took place going to festivals as a teenager.
I remember one muddy year at Glastonbury, racing down the hill arm-in-arm with a bunch of people, all off our faces on MDMA, feeling happier than I had ever felt. Another year, I remember taking mephedrone with a girl I fancied during Blur's headline set, both weeping with joy at a band we'd grown up with our whole lives.
Again, everyone knows this; no one thinks the thousands who watch the sunrise at the stone circle in Glastonbury every year are just on a high from seeing Mumford and Sons. But the festivals keep up the pretence that they are drug-free zones. Even a recent BBC3 show, Festivals, Sex and Suspicious Parents , which was supposed to show parents what their kids really got up to at festivals, ignored the fact that as the cameras panned around the festival, many revellers were plainly as high as a kite, their jaws swinging back and forth like pendulums, a side-effect of taking ecstasy.
The voiceover just kept talking about people being "drunk". I am also part of the first generation of people whose parents are likely to have been drug users. Of course, some adults would be outraged, like the parents on BBC3, to see what their kids got up to. But many more knew only too well — plenty of people I know would smoke weed or share dealers with their parents. In some families drug use had less stigma than smoking. I thought all this was normal, but at university I met, for the first time, young people who totally abstained from drugs.
They mostly came from outside major cities, or outside the UK, and many shivered in horror when they saw the rest of us dabbing our gums with mysterious white powders. I thought there would be a rift in social lives, an us-and-them situation, but it was around that time that mephedrone happened.
Known by literally no young person ever as "meow meow", mephedrone was a legal high that changed attitudes towards drug-taking.
'I like the way MDMA gives you a deep sense of connection to your friends'
Mephedrone was incredibly cheap — about a tenner a gram — and incredibly available. You could order it with next-day delivery to your university PO box. Mephedrone was a drugs phenomenon of which I have never seen the likes before or since. Everyone started doing it. I remember visiting a friend at Leeds University during this period.
We went to a club and the queue for the men's bogs was at least 70 people long. When I finally got inside the place stunk of mephedrone, you could hear everyone loudly sniffing. On nights out during this time, everyone would be raging — making out with one another, dancing with total abandon. But the comedowns were immediate and severe, far worse than ecstasy. By 4am people would be lying on the floor sharing the most intimate and personal shames and secrets, as if the drug was somehow compelling them to be honest.
- Tale of The Nightmare Princess?
- V (Vee) Target 2.
- What is ice?.
Some people called it a truth serum. Friendships were forged in the hot irons of that emotional exposition, as were the most horrendous hangovers. Mephedrone was banned within two years of it taking off. People talk a lot about one legal high being banned only for another to take its place, but the real legacy of mephedrone was to numb the stigma of harder drugs. By the time I left university, many of the drug abstainers who had tried mephedrone became relaxed about most illegal drugs, too.
It is sometimes swallowed 15 to 20 minutes to feel the effects or snorted 3 to 5 minutes to feel the effects. There is no safe level of drug use. Use of any drug always carries some risk. The effects of ice can last for up to 12 hours 2 , but it might be hard to sleep for a few days after using the drug. If you take a large amount or have a strong batch, you could overdose.
If you or someone you know is having any of the symptoms below, call an ambulance straight away by dialling triple zero It can take several days to come down from using ice. The following effects may be experienced during this time:. Using a depressant drug such as alcohol , benzodiazepines or cannabis to help with the come-down effects may result in a cycle of dependence on both types of drugs. This condition is characterised by paranoid delusions, hallucinations and bizarre, aggressive or violent behaviour.
These symptoms usually disappear a few days after the person stops using ice. People who regularly use ice can quickly become dependent on the drug.
Signs and symptoms - Drug and Alcohol Information and Support in Ireland - www.newyorkethnicfood.com
They may feel they need ice to go about their normal activities like working, studying and socialising, or just to get through the day. Some people who regularly use ice may start to feel less enjoyment of everyday activities. They can get stressed easily and their moods can go up and down quite quickly. These changes can lead to longer-term problems with anxiety and depression.
People may feel these effects for at least several weeks or months after they give up ice. Giving up ice after using it for a long time is challenging because the body has to get used to functioning without it. Withdrawal symptoms generally settle down after a week and will mostly disappear after a month.
Use of methamphetamine ice is against the law. Federal and state laws provide penalties for possessing, using, making, selling, importing or exporting, or driving under the influence of methamphetamine. The importation or exportation and the procuring of precursor drugs such as pseudoephedrine with the intention of manufacturing a controlled drug, is also against the law. Laws have been introduced that prevent the sale and possession of ice pipes in some states and territories. Effects of ice There is no safe level of drug use. Ice affects everyone differently, but effects may include: