DOSE:	repeated	insufflated	4-Methylmethcathinone	(powder / crystals)
		oral	4-Methylmethcathinone	(powder / crystals)
	repeated	smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes
		oral	Alcohol - Beer/Wine
	repeated	smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

11 st

Firstly, all of my Mephedrone experience occurred over the space of five months a few years back. As you will learn from the third-and-final Act, One Last Dance With The Devil, I will never take Meph again. Never have.

Secondly, because Meph caused such a sensation in its short life as a legal amphetamine, and due to how it ends, this story is certainly what the newspapers would call the most ‘news-worthy’ of my many drug tales.

Act I : Meeting Mephedrone

It was the beginning of my second year at university in Nottingham. During the summer, Mephedrone had exploded onto the mainstream market as one of a new breed of “Research Chemicals”.

I started to settle myself into the new house we seven lads would live in for Year Two. I had lived with all of them up the road in Year One except Jer who we all knew through Malcolm. The mob was comprised of Londoner Stan, Northerner Norm, Brummy-boy Jon, East-of-England Ethan and Malcolm from down in the South West.

Barely had I sat down on the sofa in Stan’s room (jealous! – as the last newcomer to the ramshackle house on B Street, I got left with the short-straw shoebox room with a bad bed and a drafty sash window and certainly no two-man sofa) when Jon asked:

“Y’hearda Mephedrone then mate?”

I had. Well at least I thought I had.

“Yeah yeah that’s the stuff they give to heroin addicts isn’t it?”

“Nah nah, that’s me-th-a-done – we’re talking Mephedrone, it’s like a mix of Coke and MD. But! It’s legal. You can buy it online bare cheap and it is strooooong. Everyone is doing it, everywhere!”

“Yeh and we’re gonna buy a shit-load and sell it,” added Ethan with an eager expression, “people are willing to pay twenty for a gram when it only costs six quid online!”

By this point in my life, I hadn’t yet tried MDMA. My only experience of Cocaine was at a friend’s 18th birthday party where the dull white line of powder was so diluted in my skin-full of whiskey that its only discernable effect was to make the next morning’s hangover just that bit more excruciating. Safe to say I wasn’t too excited straight away.

After some vague reiterations from the group – over a big communal zoot – about how this mad Mephedrone was so strong and so cheap that it was apparently going to take over the world, I sensed that mix of anxiety and intrigue that I normally feel when I know there’s a novel drug soon to inhabit my system.

* * *

A few weeks passed and occasionally Meph would come up in conversation. Ethan was one of the drugs main proponents, sometimes joining me in the kitchen in the morning while I made a pot of tea.

“Been up all night man. Had a couple of grams. Me and Jon. Once you start you can’t stop. Meph. So morish.” he would say skittishly through tired-wired eyes.

The first month of Term One passed in a cloud of Cannabis smoke and Mario Kart on the Wii. My 20th birthday approached as I enjoyed my last days of being a teenager. As a household of habitual Weed-smokers we made the same sort of plans that most stoners make for someones birthday – get high and not go out.

A few days before my birthday, a friend of the group nicknamed Chew came through the front door with a cheeky smile on his face and a hand surreptitiously hidden in his tracksuit jacket pocket. We knew Chew from living in the same halls as him in Year One. We all gathered round. I didn’t quite know what for, but some of the others seemed inexplicably excited.

“Laaaaaaads. I’ve got it” from his pocket Chew pulled out huge baggy of white powder with a white sticker on the front “One hundred grams of Mephedrone – straight from the supplier!”

Air was excitedly exhaled from nearby mouths. I just stared. The sack of powder in front of me instantly broke the record for the most powdered drug that I had ever seen at one time with my own eyes. I scanned the label as I squeezed the bag, it read:

“Mephedrone (4-methylmethcathinone) 99.99% purity. Research Chemical NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION” That last line seemed wrong.

“Not for human consumption? Why does it say that?” I asked, trying to look as non-plussed as possible.

“They have to put that on the bag because it’s a legal loophole” said Chew “If it says that it can be sold legally. Most places are selling it as “Plant Food” but that’s just bullshit – this shit wont do anything for your begonias”

It turned out that Chew had paid £600 for the 100g sack. Easy maths tells you that breaks down to £6-a-gram, with a desired resell value of £20-a-gram making a possible overall profit of £1400 if all sold.

Stan looked particularly interested, namely because it was he who stumped up the £600 investment to buy the stuff. Malcolm and Stone, a friend of the house from Year One, had goaded him into the purchase with the promise of him being the silent at-home investor and they being the runners to sell it.

All profits were to be split three-ways equally.

Their plan did not quite come together.

* * *

So the day of my birth had arrived. I was now in my Twenties – no longer a meagre teenager, a man, ready for life and all its trials and tribulations, ready to take on the world and all it can throw at me, ready for anything! – and of course felt no different from being 19 the day prior.

All of us seven lads of the B Street household were in Malcolm’s room. Partly under the pretence of it being my 20th but mainly to do what we always did: sit around, smoke Weed, sip some booze and listen to Drum & Bass and Dubstep (this back in the days of Digital Mystikz and Dubstep AllStars when Dub was still lo-fi and bass driven, not all that new electro crap).

Stone arrived at the party and was straight down to business.

“Come on then Malcolm! Get it out, bring out the madness!” he said with anticipation very nearly bubbling over.

Malcolm replied with a silent wry smile and leant over to his drawer to pull out the still untouched sack of Meph as Stone kept talking excitedly:

“Lets start getting baggies bagged Malc! Say we bag-up 20 grams tonight that 20 times 20 thats 400 quid Malc! Sell those in a week and we’re started! Eeeeeeeeeeeh!”

I watched on as the two fumbled with different methods of practising their new found business venture. I could sense myself being torn between feeling curious and anxious. I was the birthday boy. Everyone in the room had done Meph except me. It felt inevitable that soon I would be feeling whatever Mephedrone made you feel. I piped up.

“So seeing as I am the birthday boy here, any chances of you giving me a birthday line?” I asked Stone and Malcolm. There was a seconds silence as they stared at me.

“Ohhh so Arthur wants to try this stuff now does he?” said Stone in a tone of voice that addressed the whole room “Well mate there’s no point giving you just one line, you’ll want a lot more than that. Have a gram mate. Happy Birthday” he handed me a freshly sealed baggy, before adding “that’ll be twenty quid please”

“Twenty quid! I meant as a present. It’s my birthday, so you want to profit from me?” I was slowly getting put off the idea “You get the stuff for £6 – you can all chip-in and buy one for me maybe?”

A deal was struck and few of the lads agreed to buy me a birthday gram at cut-down rate. Malcolm racked-up a line on a DVD case the size of a small flat slug. The DVD case shook slightly in my discreetly trembling hand as I raised it towards my nostrils.

It was reminiscent of a summers day in halls the previous year when I had first tried Ketamine. Same set-up, shaking hands under a plastic case.

I took the line up into my right nostril in one long sweep. Instantly my eyes watered and my nose rang inside my skull with pain. I had expected that though. I looked up to see intrigued expressions all-round.

“Sit back and relax mate, you’re gonna be plastered to the ceiling very soon” said Stone.

I sat for a few minutes. I got up to walk downstairs for a glass of water. No discernable effects yet. Definite feeling of anxiety. Full body anxiety. Could-shit-myself-if-not-careful anxiety.

At the bottom of the stairs I looked at my reflection. Same Arthur. Pupils look a bit bigger. Might just be the Weed.

Fetched water. Messy kitchen.

Back upstairs.

Back to original position.

Not long after sitting back down, things started to change. I found myself staring intently at the blank white wall in front of me. It was incredibly interesting. It was textured. Small raised flecks formed little shadows that kept me staring wide-eyed for minute after minute.

My body was alive with a buzz I had never felt.

Like a million pin-pricks inside and out total-body.

It was slightly uncomfortable at first but soon felt refreshing.

I could feel my heartbeat.

Not just the normal lub-dub lub-dub but

KUB-BUB KUB-BUB KUB-BUB.

I was silent.

My mind was racing. I felt like I was having 1000 thoughts per second.

It felt so good to clamp my teeth together as tight as possible. Even better to grind them slightly. The noise of the teeth rubbing against each other took up all the space inside my skull.

In the distance someone was muttering something. Something to me:

“Art. Arth. Arthur!….Y’alrite mate? You look fucked!” laughed Stan.

“M’fine. Fine. WOW. Thisisawesome.” was all could muster up through gritted teeth. My vision wiggled from side-to-side sickeningly fast.

Stone piped-up.

“Hahaha. You’re buzzing mate” he glanced over to Malcolm “maybe you shouldn’t have made the line so big Malc!”

I sat up with a start. Had they given me a heroic line for a laugh? Was I going to be okay? Shit, could this stuff kill me?

WOOOOOOW I felt good. My hands clenched the bed until my knuckles lost their colour.

Stone must have sensed I was uneasy as he looked at me straight in the eye and assured me:

“You’re gonna be fine mate. Just relax. This is just the beginning”

My birthday evening flew by in a rush of hyperactivity in a body that felt positively electric. More people piled into the house. I would like to have thought it was because they knew it was my birthday, but much more likely that they had caught wind of the news that the B Street boys had a big sack of Mcat for human consumption.

I spoke to friends and strangers with all-consuming interest that I must have looked a real maniac. Talking at around six words-per-second through wide eyes I couldn’t help but tell everyone to get on it. Everyone needed to have Mephedrone in them. RIGHT NOW. Funnily enough it was Ethan who refused:

“I wish I could man. I have four grams sitting upstairs. But I wanna keep them. If I do one line tonight I’ll go through the whole four grams ‘cos my tolerance is pretty high right now” he said glumly.

No matter. I was having a blast. Music sounded zippy and all I could do was gurn. Hard. As I chatted away incessantly to anyone who would listen, the clock slowly but quickly but inevitably ticked away to midnight – my first day of being 20 was coming to an end.

Someone came up with the idea of me doing a Midnight Birthday Line to see the day out.

Ethan stepped up to the plate to create something special.

For minutes he sat there with a credit card crafting a special line of bright white Mephedrone powder.

Once finished, he looked up with a pleased smile and handed me the DVD case.

I looked down at two white lines perfectly manipulated into the shape of the number 20. Big too.

Scarily big.

It was a minute to midnight.

The room was filled with people. All gathered round, started to sing one last Happy Birthday and watched as I raised the case to my nose and inserted the rolled-up banknote into my nostril.

phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaHHHH. I snorted all of the number ’2′ in one go as Happy Birthday rang out from untuned voices all around me. I tipped my head back to stop any excess falling out of my nostril, switched the note to the other nostril as clumsily took up all of the ’0′……FUCK – it felt as though I had been hit with a sledgehammer.

Nausea. Instant nausea. With people laughing all around at what must have looked like someone who had just been Tasered, I asked for the window to opened. QUICK. As soon as my head was within a foot of the fresh air I projectile vomited an impressive arc of liquid out of the window and a few seconds later heard it smack the cobbled-stone courtyard ground far below.

As if the vomit was an exorcised ghost, I leapt back from the window. Feeling fan-fucking-tastic I punched the air with glee and made a guttural noise that conveyed the message of THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME to the group, all of whom shouted and whooped at what had just happened.

Despite the vomit, the heroic line stayed up in my nostrils and slowly administered itself into my system.

My first evening of Mephedrone consumption was defined by a tight jaw and fast thoughts.

I could have written 100 books that evening and still had energy for more. I could have run back home to say hello to friends and family, before running all the way back to Nottingham without breaking a tired sweat.

The remainder of the evening was spent watching the others peel-off to bed.

I was up though. Very up.

I sat in Jer’s room talking to him until sunrise nearly broke over the Nottingham skyline. I hadn’t known him well before moving in with him, whereas the others I all lived with in halls. Both still buzzing, we used it as a chance to get to know each other better chatting away about previous lives.

Eventually I retired to bed. Not that I felt at all sleepy, more that everyone else already had and I felt like I should.

I remember finding great difficulty in getting to sleep. Still wired from evenings events.

My sweat smelt of the stuff. Coconutty and synthetic.

All my Meph gone and all I could think about was getting more. So comforting to know there was a huge sack of it nearby. Locked away in Malcolm’s room…

* * *


Act II : Greeting Mephedrone With Open Arms

For days afterwards I could not take my mind off Meeting Mephedrone. Partly physically – my teeth, jaw and most of the muscles in my face ached for nearly a week. I had never put them through that sort of amphetamine related stress before – but mainly because it was such an overwhelmingly exciting experience to behold and digest.

Having very few other experiences with which to compare it at that time in my life, that night of snorting Meph trumped any Upper that had come before me. I was keen to repeat the experience as soon as possible but wasn’t willing to pay Malcolm and Stone’s optimistic rates. Especially when I knew I could just buy it online myself.

After a quick meeting with my friend Google, I found a flurry of recently-set-up websites offering Mephedrone in quantities from one gram up to many kilograms. I couldn’t believe it was so easy. It seemed like the future. Drugs delivered to your door. I ordered two grams of pure Mephedrone powder for £12. First Class.

The very next day, a sandy yellow Jiffy bag dropped through the letter box where I found it as I was just about to leave the house for a morning seminar. Shocked with how quickly the shipment had arrived, the seminar instantly became second priority.

I raced back upstairs to my room with the post firmly clutched in my hand. Once inside, I ripped open the Jiffy and onto the bed fell two slim rectangular bags. Their contents were concealed completely by stickers on either side of the plastic. One side showed the name of the website, the other side was a sticker similar to the one found on the 100g sack. I now smirked when I read: NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.

I pulled apart the plastic seal on one of the bags. I peered inside to see clumps of powder forming under the pressure of my fingers. I smelt inside. The smell that would later in life would come to haunt me poured out of the bag.

That coconutty aroma.

Unable to resist the temptation, I poured a bump of the powder onto my desk. It looked small but when formed into a line it looked a lot bigger than I had expected. With a carefree attitude that would define the day, I rolled up a £5 note from my wallet and took my breakfast up my nostril loud and fast.

Just the one little line wont hurt, I told myself as my eyes watered in defiance of my point.

Not long afterwards, the Meph kicked in. The first thing I did was strip-off my top and trousers. I remembered how much I sweated on that first night. I wasn’t going to be caught in clammy clothes. I leapt up and paced around the shoebox that was my room.

The still novel feeling of rushing off my tits was all consuming. It felt as though thousands upon thousands of vibrating flies raced through my veins. My skin flushed from hot to cold. Sweat glistened and dripped off my chest and arms. A small bead of sweat collected on a clumped strand of fly-away hair before dripping onto the cold wooden floor.

My mind was as flurry of ideas, thoughts, wonder and excitement as my heart pounded faster and faster. Every little spark of imagination would feel like a golden Eureka moment. The drug coursing through my veins laying warm blankets of comforting confidence onto every idea that whizzed through my consciousness.

I smoked cigarettes like they were going out of fashion. Like with a lot of Uppers, smoking while rushing is amazing. It feels like plumes of fresh beautiful air are pouring into your lungs. One is never enough. Smoking two, three in a row is easy.

I picked up random objects that I would normally ignore to examine them with the enthusiasm of a child. Never had a stapler seemed so perfect. The linoleum cover that was draped over my desk felt so smooth and shiny that I stroked it for minutes until my attention was grabbed by all the other things in my normally-drab room.

After an hour or so of making verbal love to inanimate objects, pacing about, rushing out, raving and craving – I felt myself on the plateau of the first line.

No second thought was needed, another line was the only option.

I cracked open the baggy and eyeballed another portion of the powder. I never had my own scales in Nottingham. Never did I know quite how much I was taking at one time. This one was an inch bigger than the first.

I blew my nose to rid myself of any unwanted mucus before snorting up the fun.

The day ticked away. Morning became afternoon and the rest of the B Street householders slowly started their day. Little did they know Arthur was buzzing away frantically in his room.

I always knew when Jon rose from bed: he had the room directly above me and would start his day with some Jump-Up Drum & Bass of the DJ Hazard variety playing very loudly, followed by the inevitable BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ of his electric coffee grinder obliterating some smelly nugs of bud for his essential Wake & Bake.

Both noises rang out through my ceiling as I gurned hard below.

My logic was to stay shut in my room. My thought process was that if the guys saw me fucked on Meph in the middle of the day they might be concerned. No. I was going to just stay shut away and do my thing. My thing was now Mephedrone. The worry of it all left me feeling decidedly un-fucked so the only solution more more more yes yes yes.

The day zipped by as I sat, stood, laid down, danced and ground my teeth. All the entertainment I needed was in my room. All the entertainment I needed was ground down to a powder and found in those mail-order baggies. I was continually snorting entertainment up my nose.

Many reading this will be perplexed as to why I didn’t wrap the stuff in a Rizla and bomb it down my throat. Many will argue that the best effects hit when you eat the stuff. I just didn’t care. The speed and intensity of nasal administration seemed to trump the idea of eating it and waiting for it to digest.

Throughout all of my Meph experience I must have only bombed the stuff a handful of times. I wasn’t alone in this, various people said they preferred to use it like they would Cocaine.

I was getting towards the end of the afternoon and the first gram. No, I should save the second gram. Put it somewhere safe, Arthur. Hide it. I hid it from myself in the wardrobe in a jacket pocket. There we go. Good sensible thinking, Arth.

I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Not that I felt hungry at all. No wonder supermodels like amphetamines. Still, I felt I had to take a walk downstairs to stretch my legs – walk the Mcat-walk – and maybe get some water because my throat felt raw from the drip of the drug running down from the back of my nose.

Ooh. At the bottom of the stairs I encountered Malcolm and Stan kicking a football in the hallway.

“Arthur mate. Didn’t know you were in,” said Malcolm “You good mate? You look shattered.”

Ah yes. I must have, but I hadn’t thought of checking because there was no mirror in my room. I looked in the long mirror at the bottom of the stairs to see someone staring back that looked like me – if I had just suffered a week of insomnia.

“Yeh. Yeh. Yes. Fine. Little tired. Feel like. Flu maybe? Flu-ey. Didn’t go to seminar. Ha” I said skittishly.

Malcolm stared back at me through skeptical eyes that seemed to see through my translucent excuse.

“Right yeh. Flu. Cool mate well I hope it sorts itself out” he said with furrowed brow.

I agreed and left the scene of the crime. Grabbed my water from the incredibly messy kitchen and got back to my sanctuary and secured the Chubb lock on my bedroom door.

So I’m lying to my flatmates now, I thought to myself with a sigh as I sat down on the bed and sipped at the water. It was late afternoon by now and I wasn’t feeling anything except a bit tired and a bit ratty. Enter stage left the last of my first gram.

I poured out the remains of the first packet. Ripped open the baggy to scrape off all the dust from the inside and got down to lining it up.

There was a lot there. It was easily the length of DVD case and as wide as a Biro once all laid out.

As it shot up my nostril it felt as though chunks of my nose were being torn apart. In a strange way it felt good. I had to switch nostrils but it all stayed up there. Happy days.

Rush. Rushes. Rushed. More explosions of wicked energy bubble inside me.

That last line hit hard. But it felt like it could be harder. I was sensing the effects diminishing before I wanted to. Still only early evening. I couldn’t possibly have gone to sleep. It was too early and I was wired harder than a mainframe. Shit. The effects were slipping away and I knew I had more sitting hidden away in the wardrobe.

Just one little bit from the second bag. Just one line. Put it back after.

I racked up a long chunky line and stored it carefully away inside my face. I put on some music and sat there sweating as it soaked into my bloodstream.

Music takes a whole different audio form on Mephedrone. It seems to zip in and out each ear and get jumbled up while inside the mind. At the time, I was listening to a lot of bass music when Dubstep was still finding its mainstream popularity. One tune I played on repeat was Frogs on Acid by Cluekid.

To this day I cannot listen to that song without a shiver running up and down my body and have my hairs stand on end. It takes me back to sitting in that Nottingham room, jaw clenched while the eponymous frogs ribbeted away their terrifying bassline messages.

“KEEP JUMPIN’ YA BASTARDS” shouts the angry voice before the drop “We’re Jumpin’ now! We’re Jumpin’ NOW!”

It wasn’t long before I gave into the nagging need for more Mephedrone. Without any thought of hiding the stuff from myself any longer I retrieved the second baggy from the wardrobe.

Every time I laid out a new line for myself they were getting bigger. Every time I snorted a little more blood would remain on the rolled up edge of the banknote.

It was around 9:00pm and I hadn’t seen anyone since fetching the water.

I tentatively joined the rest of the group who were all to be found next door in Stan’s room. The house lacked a communal living area except a dank basement room that was always cold, so his room was soon established as the living room due to the sofa, double bed, and big flatscreen TV. He didn’t much like that after a few months of constantly being space-invaded.

“You still feeling shitty Arth?” asked Malcolm as I sat down on the edge of the bed

“No mate. Well a bit. Well I’m tired. Well no I’m not actually.” I was babbling and receiving a similar skeptical look as earlier.

“Arth have you been snorting Meph all day?” asked Malcolm bluntly.

I was taken aback. How could they know for sure? Then I clocked it. Thin walls and me snorting loudly. Shit, maybe he thought I had been stealing his. Shit Shit Shit.

“Errrr. Yes.” I laughed nervously “Bought a couple of grams online. I’m alright though.”

They hadn’t asked if I was alright. This was going terribly. The room fell silent and I saw Stan and Malcolm exchange subtle sidewards glances to each other. For a few more minutes I sat there slowly feeling pressure on my presence. I muttered something about the kitchen and walked out of the room. Straight back to my room.

The inevitable happened. After snorting more and more, bigger and bigger. It was all gone. Two grams of Mephedrone in a day. I felt neither proud nor happy. Just extremely energetic with little of the fun fascination. My face felt like it had been given the once over by Frank Bruno. My sheets were damp with a days sweat. My pores reeked.

I had to sleep. I couldn’t sleep. I HAD to sleep. Big important seminar the next day.

I didn’t sleep.

I stayed up all night smoking cigarettes and trying not be awake. Useless.

I eventually dozed off at sunrise. After nearly 24 hours of Meph madness.

What goes up. Must come down.

The next day was hellish. I woke up at around midday feeling ghastly. I felt like some sort of poisonous ghost had taken up residence in my mind, body & soul. I didn’t make the seminar. I emailed my tutor to say I was ill. No lie there.

I couldn’t seem to move without wanting to vomit. What was worse, I hadn’t eaten a thing the day before. When eventually I did vomit into a handily-available black sack, I produced what I can only describe as thick brown sludge the consistency of semolina.

The headache was unreal and everything was just shitty horrible shitty shit.

* * *

Once I recovered from that day it wasn’t long before I ordered more. I never bought more than two grams at a time but I must have purchased 20 grams online over the course of the five months. Sometimes if I was feeling flush, I would buy some from Malcolm and Stone’s stock. Or buy some from Ethan and Jon when they were selling it too. (Although not after they came to me one evening to ask for some of my Creatine powder for cutting agent)

I had a good few more solo sessions similar to this but never took as much as two grams in one sitting again. What follows are the stories that stand out in my mind from the various Mephedrone experiences that led up to the the fateful day of 30th March 2010 which forms Act III: One Last Dance With The Devil.

* * *

As I touched on previously, as a household of stoners, we did not go out clubbing or pubbing very often. When we did, it was after a day of smoking Weed and it was never long before we all would decide that being back at home on the sofa was a better option. Of course there are exceptions to this rule.

We were all so into the Dubstep that was exploding back then, that whenever a good act was passing through town we made the effort to see them in action. One such night came along when Chasing Shadows, Caspa and David ‘Ram Jam’ Rodigan would be playing at a club just down the road from us.

I ordered two grams online a few days prior. By the time the evening of the event came along I had been unable to stop myself from consuming two thirds of my supply. Still, I had over half a gram.

I rather bravely put roughly 500mg into one empty pill capsule and the rest left in the bag for bumps to snort. The hooded jacket I wore that night had a handy hole in the seam into which I stuffed it all safely hidden away.

Not that I should have worried. This club was one of those that didn’t have a policy of patting-down everyone who walked through their door.

They knew the score.

In certain rooms, they had small mirrors horizontally attached to the wall – I’m pretty sure they were not there for girls to check their make-up.

Powder their nose, perhaps, then yes.

Still, I was cautious. I went to the toilets to take my capsule and maybe have a little bump to start-up the engine.

When I opened the door to the toilets I was met with the beast with a thousand eyes.

The small room was filled to the brim with wide-eyed clubbers. Jutting, grinding jaws swung in all directions. Heavy nasal breathing and bared gnashers all around. I looked down into the long metal communal urinal. It was littered with little rectangular baggies identical to the one I had in my pocket.

The long snaking cue for the single toilet cubicle caused people to openly snort off the back of their hands. Flimsy Rizlas shook in trembling hands as powder was not-so-carefully poured out and wrapped up.

It was a strange sight to behold. Not wanting to dither, I took down my bomb with some water from a nearby cup. I then poured out a little bump onto the back of my hand and huffed it up. When in Rome…

By now I had lost everyone and gained a steady rush.

Now just wait for the bomb to kick in.

I found Chew. He offered me a beer. I accepted. Wasn’t going to drink a lot though because wasn’t sure about mixing.

It was clear from even the most cursory of glances that the majority of everyone there was out of their faces on Meph. The place smelt of it.

It was with jaw becoming slightly more tense and music sounding warped that I stepped into the room in which Chasing Shadows were playing. Chew was gone again. I found a nice spot near the wall to rock and roll and wait for the inevitable wave of amazingness that was the half gram bomb in my stomach.

My arms were trembling slightly. My brow broke into a chilling sweat. I recognised the tune that was coming in. It was Dr. Sin.

Everyone in the room was on the same vibe. While the tune built-up to the drop I saw people exchange excited sidewards glances everywhere.

The tension built inside me and inside the room.

BOOOOOOOOOM.

The tune dropped and the place fell apart.

The rush of everyone going ape-shit mixed with the onset of a large lump of Meph in my stomach created mayhem in my mind and the whole room was flipping side-to-side and my teeth felt like they would shatter under the force of clamping down so hard and my vision was a mess of darkness and flailing arms and I was rushing faster than I ever had before and all I could do was EVERYTHING.

Outstanding.

After a bit more of Chasing Shadows’ set, I yearned for a cigarette. Feeling on top of the world I went out to the smoking area. Once outside I must have spoken to a dozen people over a dozen cigarettes. Everyone was on Meph. There was no escaping it.

Once inside I endeavoured to find my group. My quest came to an end when I found my flatmates rocking away to Caspa with David Rodigan MC’ing. I discreetly snorted the rest of my bag and threw the empty wrapper on the dancefloor.

I was always the most active mover. Stepping about and making the most of the Meph while it lasted.

The energy is electric inside when I am on Mephedrone. Nothing seems too tough.

Just Do It. Go With The Flow. Feel The Buzz.

By the time I saw out the effects of the evenings supply I started to feel that deflated irritability that comes when you want what you don’t have. Everyone else had finished their supply and were in similar states to me. All I could think of was the still hefty amount of Mephedrone sitting at home in Malcolm’s room.

“MALCOLM! Let’s go home and get on the supply!” I shouted into his ear to fight the music.

He must have been already thinking along similar lines, because before long the group was rounded up and back home in the comfort of Stan’s room.

When Malcolm pulled the Meph bag out of his drawer it looked noticeably smaller than I had thought it would.

“Wow, you and Stone have been hard at work selling!” I remarked.

“Ha. Well. Yeh. We’ve made a bit of money. Thing is we just keep doing loads ourselves. And giving some away. Plus so many people are buying and selling it that no-one wants to pay twenty quid for a gram. To be honest we dont care about the profit now so much. As long as we at least make back the £600 for Stan it’s fine” he said in a way that sounded as though he was reassuring himself more than me.

They never did completely make back Stan’s money. They were able to give him quite a bit of money but settled it as one of life’s lessons and by giving Stan a load of the remaining Mephedrone. He never properly forgave them though.

That night was ended in a flurry of unmeasured lines. My body felt shattered after the nights raving.

I fell asleep slightly more easily than normal.* * *

One of the main advantages of attending university and living away is being surrounded by hundreds of student houses.

Hundred of student houses means hundreds of student house parties. Whispers travel quickly when one is happening and this story centres around one such party.

Jer was my flatmate that I got to know properly on my birthday night. He was one of those lads who all the ladies loved. Tall, blonde and athletic. He was the only person I had ever known to have a threesome.

The party we were going to was at the house of a girl he knew. It was a completely open-invite so chances were it was going to be a big one. There was a rumour going round that this girl knew Foreign Beggars and that they would be playing at the party.

The day of the party arrived and us B Street boys warmed up during the afternoon with some lovely Lemon Haze. By late afternoon we put aside the Sativa and graduated onto some Alcohol.

I knew full well I would be getting on the Meph later that evening but by this point I was happy to mix Alcohol and Mephedrone so I drank away.

The Budweiser’s fizzed and the excitement bubbled.

Friends of the household joined us to go to the party during the early evening. They turned up already buzzing.

A small cohort of gurners.

Chew led the pack of a few lads I didn’t know. They were like a clan from The Warriors. Come out to plaaayyyayyyyy.

They were keen to go to Jon’s room to rack up some more bombs and lines.

I followed.

Once upstairs, Jon fired up his decks and to play some D&B vinyl. He whipped out his bag of white powder. Not mephedrone, mind. Jon was much more of a Cocaine kind of a guy.

He laid out a set of Coke slugs. Chew declined. Too much Meph to do. A couple of the strangers took him up on the offer. Jon huffed his line and offered me the rolled-up note.

Why not?

It would be the first line of Cocaine since that 18th party.

I accepted the banknote, leant down to the desk surface and took the up the slug in a clean swipe.

Mmmm. Smooth. The line went up with such ease that I felt like nothing had happened. Compared to the Total Annihilation of snorted Meph, this Coke was easy-peasy-Japanesey.

After a few minutes my teeth, face and gums felt numb. Comfortably Numb.

Not long afterwards the group went on the move. It was a ten-minute walk to the girl’s house. The sight of us must have been one to behold – travelling like a pack of buzzing bees through the streets of Nottingham.

Primeval roars bellowed from the group as the boys jostled for Alpha male status.

The party house was on the horizon. Streetlight reflected off a Strongbow bottle.

The Booze, Coke and Meph was warming me.

The group was warm.

The party was going to be hot.

We arrive at the front door. No need for a knock. Doors wide open. People lining the walls and stairs. The bass was shaking the glass. Party time.

The place was big and full. Some basic furnishings, but no ornaments. Lots of people.

I and some of the others headed straight outback to smoke and chat. Downstairs on the way out to the garden we walked past a dark basement room where music was blaring out and a few neon lights lit a room full of head-bopping gurners.

The garden was similar to ours at B Street. No grass. Just cobbled-stone ground and high walls. There was a bench and a few stray seats but most people were standing. Fag in hand. Wide-eyed or bleary-eyed take your pick.

Stone got straight to talking to a pack of girls. Before long he was doing his sales patter and whipping out a bag of his and Malcolm’s Meph. Like a true gentleman he picked up an empty quarter bottle of Vodka – one of those small square flat ones – and proceeded to lay out a few lines for the ladies on the back of the bottle.

As he rallied on, I took a big bump off the back off my hand. Back to the painful stuff. I winced and went back inside.

I never saw if he was successful. I explored the house.

On closer inspection, the basement room was being DJ’ed by a man in a three-piece suit. His eyelids drooped to point where he looked asleep at the wheel. Still, he was doing well and I enthusiastically rocked to the beat with all the others in the dark cave.

No Foreign Beggars yet – if they ever would turn up.

My face was tightening and my tongue was loosening. I was talking to everyone in sight. I grabbed a rare place on the sofa between two girls I knew from the previous year in halls. We all pulled out our bags of Meph and held conversation over casual keys. The vital plugging of one nostril mid-speech not stopping conversation, just pulling the pitch up a tone.

The room was full of people doing similar. It really was incredible just how many people were consuming Mephedrone; not just at that party, but at parties and clubs all across the city, at cities up and down the country.

Of course there were exceptions. Typified by the guy who strolled into the living room Stage Right, living room door.

“Fooookin ‘ell!! Look at yooz lot! All yer! Fooked off yer Faaaces man” he said in an indistinct slurred accent from some part of the North of the country, before proceeding to pretend to gurn like those old folks who put their heads in horse collars.

He cackled and walked away. I could see where he was coming from. Although I was feeling super tip-top and nothing was going bring me down, the sight of so many people cramped into once space nearly all on one drug was shocking.

It was how I imagined it must have been to experience MDMA when it first hit the scene in the 1980s. This was our generation’s Ecstasy. A drug for the Age of the Internet. Shared and Liked. All of it Made in China. Pieced together in folly factories like the rest of the toys and tat that gets pumped-in to bolster the all-powerful Religion of Consumerism. Consume we did.

I now believe it was precisely because of the lack of real Ecstasy available at the time that helped Mephedrone become so widely used. Gathering global powers were cracking down on the produce of Safrole oil – the precursor to producing MDMA. Whole forests of Safrole oil-bearing trees were destroyed.

In steps MDMA’s chemical cousin Mephedrone.

It’s legal. Shackles removed.

Mass popularity.

Mass destruction some would argue.

The main difference between MDMA and Meph on a physical level is that the super loved-up waves of empathy which fuel an MDMA buzz are non-existent while high on Meph. Its just Energy, Energy, Energy when I consume Meph regularly. When the Serotonin and Dopamine stocks are all flooded away on First Trips it starts to become dull. Increasing amounts are needed just to get the Energy.

The room had taken on a negative energy. I felt cramped on the sofa and the girl’s chit-chat was becoming monotonous. I got up to leave the room. Front or back? Front. I went to open the door. Outside was a loose-knit group of lads and ladies drinking and smoking, spilling onto the pavement and road.

I melted into the crowd and rolled up a cigarette. At the same time I pulled out an extra Rizla and filled it with Meph before wrapping it up and chucking it down my throat with glug of borrowed beer.

The nose could take a break.My bomb went down a treat and came-up a-good’un. I flew around the last hours of the party like a Hummingbird. I took some of Jon’s Cocaine when offered in the bathroom upstairs. I danced with strangers in the basement when it hit me in the basement downstairs.

Foreign Beggars never did turn up. After an hour or so of bopping and rocking & rolling to the suited DJ and his helpers, I was coming to the end of the buzz and feeling the deflated feeling that was becoming sickeningly familiar.

It was at that point that I began to realise I was starting to tire of Mephedrone. Its full effects were becoming all too predictable.

Still, I took a charity line from a friend from my course. Not a big hit though, he was dishing them out to quite a few of us. I zipped it up and thought of home.

The party was getting to the grim stage when everyone is coming down and falling asleep and forming regrets. I had no idea where any of my original beehive were. I had a habit of flying solo.

I buzzed off back to B Street. When I got back I found most of the lads already home. Feeling no effects of the nights drug intake except a tired emptiness, I welcomed the big cheesy spliff that was passed to me on arrival. The stinking Indica knocked me sideways, straight into my room and into bed.

As I lay there in the dark falling to sleep my muscles trembled and relaxed.

Trembled and relaxed.

Strange but comforting.

A warning sign.

* * *

Apart from some minor blips, these experiences were mainly positive. I carried on in a similar pattern of parties, clubbing and solo sessions with no serious consequences.

After that girls house party I started to go off Mephedrone as it all became a bit one-dimensional. The newspapers were filled with stories of people apparently dead from using ‘Meow-Meow’ as it became known. It has now been revealed years later that all the apparent Mephedrone deaths were caused by different substances all together – usually Methadone.

Still, it was all causing a media shit-storm and politicians were hastily moving to ban it and like substances.

The pre-cursor to Act III: One Last Dance with the Devil is me sitting at home five-months after my Birthday Mephedrone Induction. I knew the law was going to change just days ahead.

Save the Last Dance…

* * *

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Act III : One Last Dance With The Devil

I looked out pensively from the window of Perry’s sporty hatchback as it rolled along the road.

It was late morning and we were driving through the streets of Rochester, headed for the M25 motorway en route to Nottingham.

I sat in the passenger seat and Karl was alone in back. The impressive sub-woofer in the boot was shaking all of our kidneys to near failure.

Karl and Perry are two of my best friends from home. Known them since school. They are inseparable.

By then, I had been living back home for a few weeks. In a life-changing move I had cut all my ties with Nottingham. The quality of life that I was living in Notts was poor. No longer could I surround myself with dirt, mould, grime and crime. I hated the course I studied and what’s worse was on route to failing. I had to cut my losses.

And cut I did. Cut and run. Just left the house on B Street one day with a few of my possessions and dreams of home.

I was so glad to be back home for good – to leave behind a life I came to hate. The only problem was that I had also left behind many of my possessions in the mad rush to escape. I needed to retrieve them. A road trip was in order.

As I don’t drive, Perry and Karl offered to drive me up to Nottingham to fetch my stuff and come back. Roughly a six-hour round-trip lay ahead.

A few days beforehand I had ordered a single gram of Mephedrone online. I had heard the news that it was to be made illegal very soon. Not having taken it for a few weeks, I thought that I would take one last chance to feel The Mephedrone Buzz.

The guys in the car didn’t know I had the small bag of white powder in my pocket. It was stored away in my wallet. Not for long though.

“Right, so, guys” I said as I pulled my wallet out of my pocket, about to show them the small bag of Meph. “Look what –

“Did you hear they’re making Mephedrone illegal now?” Karl interjected.

Strange. Very strange. Karl had no idea I was in possession of the Meph when he said that.

“Errr. Yes. Yes I do, in fact, I have a gram of it on me right now.” I replied.

“What? Why?” Karl asked.

“Weeeellllll. Y’know. Thought I would have one last dance with the Devil” I said as I exposed the baggy and shook it back and forth “I thought maybe we three could all do it as neither of you have tried it. It’s not as scary as you might think. Forget all those media reports of deaths I reckon they are all bullshit.”

Karl didn’t look convinced. Perry exhaled sharply in a way that suggested he didn’t approve. I rallied on:

“Yeh I mean its pretty crazy shit but never did me any real harm. I tell you what I’ll rack-up a line now, in the car. Show you the Meph in action. It’s no biggy” I assured them both.

I climbed into the back seat with the car still moving to sit next to Karl. He passed me a CD case and I proceeded to make-up a line for myself. I had bought Mephedrone crystal instead of powder for the very first time. The effect of crystal is that lasts longer but doesn’t hit as hard. It needed crushing down. I used a bankcard. Once lined up I snorted it quickly.

It had been a while. The smell of it. The pain. The watering eyes. The anxiety. All feelings I hadn’t missed.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh. There. Not so bad. Goes up like a tuh-reat” I lied “LETS GGGGGGOOOO!!!!!”

“You are a madman Arthur” sighed Perry.

“Nutter” agreed Karl.

I clumsily climbed back into the front seat as the car sped along. We passed a McDonalds. No need for food today, I thought.

After a little while I started to feel the buzz. The music was slipping in and out of pitch. My jaw tightened slightly. Subtle eye-wiggles made the car vibrate in my vision. I felt a little disappointed.

No sweat? Normally I would be sweating. Maybe crystal was a bad choice. I was already thinking of a second line.

The guys tried to gauge how I felt. I played it down because I honestly didn’t feel too fucked at all. Still, I was talking a little quicker and felt good for the journey that lay ahead of us.

Once we met the M25 I felt practically normal. We laughed and joked, raved and ranted the miles away. We stopped at a services to stretch our legs. I needed to pee so I went to the toilets.

Once inside, I ignored the urinals and went straight to the cubicle to sit down and wrap up a little bomb to see me through to our destination. Down the hatch it went and out of the toilet I strolled.I found Karl and Perr y mucking about outside in the car park.

We got back on the road and headed for the M1 motorway which would take us to Nottingham.

It didn’t take long for the bathroom bomb to explode in my empty stomach. My eyes wiggled uncontrollably and my jaw started doing its own thing. I looked round to the backseats where Karl was sitting to show off my impressive gurn. He laughed.

I was rushing so hard and fidgeted wildly in my seat. Perry jokingly asked if I would please refrain from smashing his windows or breaking anything. I agreed. I smoked a sweet tasting cigarette and chucked it out of the window just as we took the junction onto the M1.

Although indubitably a grand feat of civil engineering, the M1 is a tad boring to experience as a passenger like I had so many times before. This time the Meph made things much more manageable. Anything and everything was interesting. Dopamine and Serotonin flowed through my body internally as the deep bass of Perry’s beats shook me externally. Despite a gradual acceptance that I was reaching the plateau of the bomb, I was in high spirits and the hilarity was palpable.

When Karl, Perry and I are together we constantly play the comedians.

Jokes were fired off in all directions.

The car travelled in just one direction.

The road signs read Nottingham.

My recently-previous life lay on the horizon.

The last part of the journey melted away as Nottingham pulled us closer. I guided Perry through the last parts of our voyage. We passed where I lived in the First Year.

The familiar route into the city centre to B Street went quick and smooth as it was pre rush hour and the roads weren’t busy.

In a blink of an eye the car pulled up outside The House.

My feelings were negative. I was flatlining Meph-wise and the house was like a massive brick Baboon on my shoulder screaming to be let free.

We rocked up to the front door past a mountain of bin-bags and I unlocked the door of the house haunted by a hundred stories.

BING-BONG said the door as I opened it. One of those little noises that tells the homeowners the front door is opening and closing. Pretty fucking scary when it wakes you up at four-in-the-morning and you’re sure everyone is asleep.

Ahhhh. Lovely. That familiar stench of The House. Mainly a by-product of a mouldy kitchen but a mix of many things indeed. Too many to mention.

One thing the house didn’t smell of was Cannabis. Through a Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction process I surmised that no-one was home. If anyone was in there was by default Weed being smoked. Even if it wasn’t being smoked, the denk stench of the amount laying around and recently-smoked always hung thick in the air during term time. It was half-term and the place was simply smelly my Dear Watson.

I used this opportunity to give Karl and Perry a tour of the place.

“Right gentleman this is, well was, my house. Late Victorian build. Originally a very nice property – before the students rolled into town. It offers seven bedrooms in varying sizes from far-too-big to far-too-small, two rather disgusting bathrooms, a dingy & damp basement-living room, a scary-as-fuck basement cave complex with no electricity and no light-source and finally a kitchen-diner that has space to seat four in a house that beds seven. Desirable. Very, very desirable.” I said sarcastically upon ending my mock estate-agent act.

“It fucking stinks mate” said Karl, frowning.There actually wasn’t much more to show them than my room. With everyone else out, the rest of place was on lockdown and was too disgusting to want to stay in for too long. It was a stinking shell of a place that I was not keen to hang around in.

I opened the door to my room and found it just as I had left it. Bed unmade. Desk lost under a flurry of paper covered in frantic scribbles. Two or three meals worth of empty plates. A pizza crust covered in dry yellowed garlic sauce. General chaos.

We got down to removing all my worldly goods contained in that room and shifting them down to Perry’s car post haste. I was feeling ratty from the lack of buzz but still energetic. I kept thinking Mephedrone.

TV. Wii. Books. Bedding. Clothes and the rest. All of it transited up and down, up and down over fifteen or twenty minutes. It was tiring yet pleasingly cathartic. Like extracting the last little bit of jam out from the bottom of a frustrating jar.

All of my jam was now jammed into Perry’s not too fit-for-purpose hatchback and ready to go.

They climbed in the car as I stood beside it in the middle of the road. I looked back up at the first-floor window directly above the door. It was my bedroom window no more. Suddenly I felt the need to go back inside.

“Just gonna take one last look around to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything guys” I said as I hopped back indoors not waiting for any reply.

I did take one quick last glance around the place but in the back of my mind I knew exactly why I went back in. With my bedroom locked up I went to the nearest convenient place to take a hit: the toilet.

Upon opening to door to the first-floor toilet I was greeted with vile sight of a bog never cared for but constantly used. I gave the top of the cistern a quick clean and promptly and efficiently laid out a slug of half-crushed crystals onto the newly haphazardly cleaned surface. Up, up and away it went. Back to the car.

Once the front door slammed behind me I was in the backseat quick as a flash and the journey home began. Karl was now riding shotgun as I took the front on the way up. Fair enough.

If the guys suspected I had just taken some Meph they didn’t say anything. My mood certainly picked up though, fast.We made one quick stop to top-up petrol. I went to the toilets to secretly top-up my fuel. One bump up each nostril. That was my fourth sizeable hit of the day. The bag was looking below half empty. I would save the rest for home.

Back on the road and London was near. We hit the M25 Orbital and rode that road hard and fast. The engine rumbled and roared. My empty stomach stayed silent. Still hadn’t eaten a thing. Karl and Perry munched on snacks and sweets they had picked up at the petrol station. I declined their adamant offers of food. I assured them I was fine.

Was I fine?

Yes. At that point I was buzzing hard and home was near. Past the Dartford Bridge and down to Medway we drove. Karl arranged to pick-up some Weed. We collected it up the road from where I live.

David the Dealer jumped in the car and dished out the denk. Just a tenners bit of some Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese. The stuff stank.

Pulling up outside my house with the car blaring-out some Hip-Hop, I sighed with tired relief. It had been a long day and the drug intake multiplied the fatigue. We shifted my stuff inside straight away and dumped it all in my bedroom without much care.

All feeling rather exhausted we crashed in my room. They both sat cross-legged on my king-size bed and I was on resting on my huge bean-bag that we had retrieved from Notts that day.

After a while I joined them on the bed and got down to making lines from the remaining Meph on a mirror. I was able to make three sizeable lines. Time to broach the issue:

“SO. Are you two gonna try this stuff then?” I asked mock temptingly.

Karl shrugged as he continued to build the spliff he was rolling. Perry gave no real reply. I could have gone into a speech to convince them but I was feeling tired and was keen to do my bit. I took the biggest line of the three and the ends off the other two.

Big old hit. Really felt it.

“Well they’re there if you want ‘em” I winced “Get ‘em while they’re hot”

I didn’t really mind if they wanted to take the Meph or not. A small voice naturally said ‘More For Me’ in the back of my head. Karl was finished with building the spliff. I was coming-up nice and hard. I looked forward to an approaching toke on the welcoming spliff.

It occurred to me as Karl passed the Dutchie to the left-hand side to Perry that I had never to that point – in all my Mephedrone experience – smoked Cannabis while buzzing on Meph. Sure, I had smoked it after nights out taking it when the full effects has diminished. And I smoked it before my first experience.

Somehow, never had I blended both buzzes at the same time. It flummoxed me because Weed was everywhere and I consumed it like most people do water. Maybe it would make me hungry. Still hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

The thought ran out of my head and Perry passed me the joint and I toked deep and hard. Three or four long cheesy inhale-exhales. Back to Karl.

Before long I was fucked. The high-grade Weed and lab-grade Meph hit hard. My mind was thrown between fast and slow thought processes at the same time.

Hard to explain.

The zoot went around and around until I stubbed it out in the ashtray.

Absolutely battered.

Couldn’t really focus.

Felt uneasy.

Anxious.

I tried to hold conversation but felt like I was failing. The guys laughed it off as their eyes flared a lovely shade of Stoned Pink.

I got down on my knees and played with the laptop that was on the bed. I stared at all the words. They lacked much meaning.

And then It happened.

Well. Actually. I don’t really know what happened. All I remember was hearing a loud glassy crashing noise and sound of a guitar falling over.

No visual memory at all.

Next thing I knew I was standing up terribly off-balance between bed and window. Karl and Perry were shouting in unison through wide concerned eyes, frantic concern:

“Arthur! Arthur! Mate Mate! Are you okay? Are you alright? Are you okay?”

I had no idea why they looked so worried. I didn’t know when I had stood up. I knew something strange had happened but no clue what.

“Well that was odd” I said almost jokily.

“What the FUCK?” cried Karl “Arthur mate you looked like you were dying!! Breathing really heavy. Convulsing.”

“Well that’s never happened before” I replied into a silence. Then it all clicked “Shit. It’s the mix. I shouldn’t have smoked Weed! Its bad mixing an Upper and a Downer!”

“No mate, you shouldn’t have been snorting THAT shit all day. Get rid of it man. It’s not good for you. Flush it away down the toilet or something” said Perry in a tone of dampened shock.

It certainly didn’t look good on Mephedrone’s part. I suddenly hated the vile coconutty-smelling shit. Did it nearly just kill me? I couldn’t recall anything. I felt shellshocked.

The two of them had a good go at reiterating what had happened.

Apparently, out of nowhere, I started breathing in and out super-quick with my head face-down in the mattress. I then tried to stand up and lost all balance and smashed into the window and venetian blind before then flailing into my guitar. All while breathing heavily and eyes wild. The whole furore lasted fifteen seconds or so, I hear.

I tried to take it all on board. My mind was a muddy pool of worry.

In a state of understandable shock, the two of them departed to go home. A part of me wanted them to stay.

I was left alone in a room cluttered with objects collected from the past.

The two leftover lines of Mephedrone sat taunting me from their mirror.

I am almost ashamed to say I looked down at them and a small part of me somewhere urged me to snort them.

Sense prevailed and I blew them out of the window into the starry night sky.

For an instant, there were thousands of new shiny stars suspended in the darkness but they fell to Earth and were whistled away by the wind.

Good Riddance.

Safe to say whatever happened I never wanted to touch Mephedrone again.

I laid in darkened room. Laid in bed with eyes wide open. Not sure whether to try to sleep or not.

I felt spaced-out and in shock.

I was scared to doze off. I was scared whatever happened could happen again. In the night while I slept.

My mind raced with scared thoughts.

Tiredness prevailed.

I went to sleep that night unsure whether I would wake up again in the morning.

Darkness.

Sleep.

Light.

Life.

Live.

* * *

Afterword

I woke up the next morning glad to be alive. It was an invigorating feeling to know I had survived that unknown ordeal. I felt like living life to the full.

For months afterward I became much more positive in attempt to counteract what felt like a near-death experience.

For a while I told myself it was a seizure of some kind. I told no-one else about it for a long time. I was embarrassed mainly. Karl and Perry kept it quiet.

Never ever have I been in contact with Mephedrone since.

The law did change and Mephedrone was banned. There are still websites that sell all manner of new “Legal Highs” but I have never been tempted. I hear that there are still people buying Mephedrone, now as an illegal drug. It now apparently costs £40-a-gram and will never come 99.99% pure again. Perhaps it is ironically cut with things ‘For Human Consumption’...

Never do I now mix Upper with Downer to any dangerous degree.

I have ever since stuck to well-established drugs that I have researched thoroughly.

Researching prior to the use of any drug is a must. Essential.

Live and Learn.

A.T.Huffam

March 2013

Exp Year: 2009-2010	ExpID: 100032
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Oct 10, 2018	Views: 8,651
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