Pubdate: Tue, 15 Apr 2003
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Zoe Williams

CHEMICAL REACTIONARIES

So What If Students Are Making Ecstasy? At Least They Are Better Trained 
Than Many Dealers On The Streets

In order to pay off exorbitant student loans (yeah, yeah, tell that to the 
judge), young graduates are increasingly turning to the manufacture of 
psychoactive drugs. Well, not all students, naturally - English students 
couldn't manufacture anything but an Adornian reading of Donnie Darko. No, 
this is entirely chemistry students: they know what they're doing, they 
have peerless access to labs and materials, and they're very easy to spot. 
The criminal fraternity just has to go into its local campus and look for 
the person with the chemistry hair.

Most importantly, they make extremely good E. As Keith Bowes, an 
ex-manufacturer now in prison, wrote in his (ill-advised) E-letter, "this 
is twice as good as anything you'll get nowadays. Please respect this stuff 
as it is pure. No heroically munching half a gram, because you will die."

This quality issue might sound like a side dish in the rather more pressing 
concern of youths exploiting the gift of knowledge to bend the minds of 
their fellow students, but in fact it is key. This is not a case of 
students wilfully breaking the law to flex their little biceps. It's not a 
case of criminals approaching the weak and vulnerable, and bullying them 
into illegality with the judicious use of a Tony Soprano face. It's a job 
being undertaken by the people who will do it best.

It makes perfect sense. It's about a million times better than the American 
way, whereby poor students pay off debts by cleaning for rich ones. If you 
were going to go out and take an E, who would you want it made by? Someone 
with four years of experience? Or a pair of jokers with some coke, some 
toothpaste and a pill machine?

In the early days of E, everyone used to talk wistfully about Amsterdam, 
where every club had a little chemist booth, manned voluntarily by people 
who could break down the composition of your pill for you - if it was 
mainly aspirin, you'd know about it (although the point was the 
preservation of clubber health, it wasn't like a consumer rights 
organisation). If those volunteers were actually making the E, imagine how 
much more efficient it would all be. Plus, it would make us even more 
progressive than the stories about progressive Holland, which are all made 
up anyway, and only people like me believe.

Naturally, far from applauding this solitary good thing to come out of the 
iniquitous student loan system (well, kind of), this will spark outrage, 
probably enough to result in universities having to station dogs in 
laboratories.

The good E will disappear from the streets and everyone will reacquaint 
themselves with the rubbish E that does nothing apart from give you a vague 
sense of unease and make you want to run for buses. People will take five 
at a time; then some rogue good Es, of the type made by Keith, will appear 
on the market, someone will take five of those and die, and the police will 
say "well, there you go, E kills."

It is powerfully reminiscent of the situation in Manchester in the early, 
heady days of E. About 18 months after the E explosion, there occurred a 
number of gun crimes. The on dit was that drugs lead to gun crime. But 
Sarah Champion, editor of Disco Biscuits (an anthology of E-related 
essays), said that it was slightly more complex than that. A lot of drug 
dealers had been arrested and sentenced. Their businesses, rather than 
rotting away, had been taken over by their younger siblings - feckless 
14-year-olds going "wow, cool gun. I wonder what happens if I pull this." 
So, sure, logically speaking, the drugs have led to the gun crimes; the 
police are right and the dealers are wrong; but couldn't it all have been 
handled slightly better? Couldn't there have been less emphasis on right 
and wrong, and more on how to make things slightly less dangerous for young 
nitwits?

The debate over drug legislation has been rehearsed many times, but it's 
time to debate it again, having accepted some rock-solid truths. One, E is 
not going to go away. Nor is coke, by the way. It doesn't matter how 
illegal they are. Two, you know the status of dope, now? With politicians 
admitting to Sunday papers that they've smoked it, just to sound a bit 
cool, with policemen deciding unilaterally that it might be illegal in the 
rest of the country, but it's not on Coldharbour Lane? That's what E will 
be like in 20 years. No question. Three, we medicate for everything - we've 
got to the point where we medicate boisterous children for being bored in 
boring situations (like school). We medicate ourselves to stimulate 
moderate happiness every day of the week. If we think we can stand in the 
way of medicating for extreme happiness at a weekend, then swimming against 
the tide doesn't begin to describe it. We are mad.

And say you've accepted all this, but you still think keeping criminal 
status will limit, if not end, the use of these drugs. Maybe you're right. 
But save your horsepower and your prison sentences for people who are 
making terrible drugs and feeding bleach and ketamine to the vulnerable 
youths who just wanted a bit of MDMA. Well-trained graduates with a respect 
for drugs and a sense of civic pride are exactly what this industry needs.
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MAP posted-by: Beth