Liverpool students to be Meow Meow ‘guinea pigs’

Mar 22 2010 by Luke Traynor, Liverpool Echo

Exclusive: Liverpool university students to become mephedrone ‘guinea pigs’

STUDENTS in Liverpool are set to become human “guinea pigs” in a pioneering experiment to test controversial new “drug” mephedrone.

A 50-strong team will be recruited by John Moores University (JMU) to report the effects of the legal high whose popularity is sweeping the country.

Known as Mcat or Meow Meow, city sellers said the product was “flying off the shelves” to excited users.

One Liverpool stockist told the ECHO he expected the government would ban mephedrone, within weeks.

Politicians have been stung into action by the deaths of teenagers Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in Scunthorpe, after allegedly taking the high.

It can be snorted through the nose, like cocaine, or dabbed on the tongue.

Alarm has grown further after toxicology reports confirmed that a 46-year-old man, John Sterling Smith, from Hove, died as a direct result of mephedrone.

Marketed as a type of plant food, and plastered with “not for human consumption” warnings on its packaging to avoid falling foul of the law, Mcat is said to be rife in Liverpool.

The low quality of cocaine and ecstasy in the city is said to have pushed mephedrone to prominence, with 1g bags retailing between £10-20.

It can give the user a high which has been compared to amphetamines, ecstasy or cocaine.

Now, in a eye-opening move, the public health department at JMU has recently won “ethical approval” to begin researching the “drug” with the help of students determined to get their weekend thrills.