Panic in CAT Country

Over recent days, a full-blown moral panic has erupted over the spread of mephedrone, a new and currently legal drug that has apparently become something of an overnight sensation among the UK’s young people. To use the term ‘moral panic’ in this case is not to imply that there is no cause for concern, or that the drug is safe. Rather, it’s a term drawn from social science which accurately reflects the situation: popular media have reported developments in the most lurid and sensational terms, with hugely exaggerated claims made for numbers of users and—especially—numbers of deaths, as deaths have been classified as resulting from the use of mephedrone before the evidence is in. In short, all sense of proportion has been lost in regard to this issue.

Why? When a reaction is out of proportion to its stimulus, usually some underlying anxiety is at work. And indeed, there are more diffuse and general fears in circulation about the young generation—its invasion of urban centres, where it prowls, hooded and intent on disorder; its disinterest in parliamentary politics; its sexual practices; its absorption in the internet and electronic gadgets, its casual consumption of illicit substances. The mephedrone scare provides a focus around which a concerned older generation can gather. Add to this underlying social trend the approach of a general election, with press and politicians looking to score points, and you have the classic ingredients of a moral panic. And with it, pressures mount on the authorities to be seen to “do something.”

The appropriate response to the problem is, in fact, fairly obvious. As a number of commentators including Release have pointed out already, what is needed is a reasoned consideration of the research evidence, and a set of actions guided by its conclusions. We do not know yet how dangerous mephedrone is: most of the cases in which it has been present in toxicology reports have shown other substances present, and the precise health and social circumstances of the individuals have yet to be made clear. There is also the broader context of drug control in which the mephedrone question sits: the present regime does not, in reality, provide control at all, but rather hands it over to an illicit market run by organised criminals, with violence, high prices and unknown purity adding hugely to the dangers posed by the drugs themselves. Given this, and the fact that young people will use drugs regardless of warnings, we should make harm reduction information available and so avoid at least the most risky practices. The resort to panic is counter-productive in every respect.