GCSE PSHE / Citizenship: Jade's experience of taking mephedrone

I hadn’t slept for two days. I hadn’t eaten for two days. I had no friends to turn to and my mum didn’t trust me.

I’m Jade. I would say I’m pretty much of a tomboy. I like sitting down and playing a bit of Xbox. I love riding out on my moped.

I grew up with my mum and er, my dad wasn’t around and she’s been my idol since I was a little girl.

I met my first boyfriend through a friend that I made at school. A couple of months down the line he revealed to me that he actually did smoke cannabis. And I told him I didn’t want to know about it and he wasn’t to do it around me. And, erm, then one day he brought it to my house and said that, you know, I’ve got to try it before I judge. I thought that quite a lot of the people in the years above me were, at least 50% were all doing it. So I trusted him and I said, yeah OK then I’ll give it a go.

Then we actually broke up and I was really upset. I was depressed. I wanted to smoke everyday because I thought it was helping me.

Voice over:
When cannabis is smoked, its main chemical, 9-tetrahydrocannabinol passes from the lungs into the bloodstream and the brain. In the brain, it increases the release of dopamine, which makes the user feel happy and relaxed – or high. Dopamine works in what’s called the reward pathway of the brain, which reinforces behaviour that feels pleasurable, encouraging users to smoke more cannabis, and eventually to become dependent on it.

Jade:
I would do it for fun, to make me feel better but then after a while I started to need it to go to sleep. I needed it to go out to get the confidence to do things. I was missing school because I couldn’t even be bothered to go in.

I just thought that I was being normal. I just thought I’m going to have another day off, it’s fine, it doesn’t matter.

So I was smoking with a group of boys. And we went to a house party. I’d heard of mephedrone. It was legal as well at this point and quite a lot of people were doing it and trying it out. So I’d heard things about it.

Voice over:
Mephedrone, which is sometimes called ‘meow meow’, is part of a group of drugs called amphetamines, which include speed. It comes as a powder or pill and acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system, changing the chemical balance of the brain.

Mephedrone increases the availability of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline, which send messages across the brain affecting the user’s mood, behaviour and sleep.

Jade:
I think it just kind of became more of a curiosity as to why I wanted to try it. Like after I had that first line, it really just gave me a confidence boost. And like I just wanted to do it again and again.

I think my mum, from the beginning, she realised that I was starting to hang around with like quite a big social group so when I asked for money to go out she was always like, yeah that’s fine, you know, you can go out with your friends.

I kept going back to the flat where we were sniffing mephedrone but I never really, I didn’t always have the intention of doing it. If it was there and someone offered it to me then I would. And then I think it kind of went on like that for about two months.

When I did it I would always get a numb face, like this tingling sensation in my face. And I would go really weird and for a second I couldn’t really see. You have a really big high but the come down is just miserable. Like you’ll be so buzzing, so hyperactive, all of a sudden you’ll just be depressed.

Voice over:
Mephedrone can raise the heart rate and blood pressure. In some cases, it can narrow the blood vessels, causing the blood flow to be reduced, and toes, fingers and even the face to feel cold, and in Jade’s case, numb. The come-down effects include tiredness, dizziness, low mood and loss of memory.

Trying to avoid these negative effects can lead to longer-term use and eventually addiction.

Jade:
I would wake up in a sweat, where my body’s trying to get the drug out of my system. And I would always just feel really ill. And it wasn’t nice. I was always kind of depressed and just very, like confused of what I have done the night before.

A lot of the time people would point out how I was more moody or aggressive but I wouldn’t think twice about it. I thought that I was the same normal Jade at this point and obviously I wasn’t. I was never really in the right state of mind. If somebody offered me a drug I would take it. I would never ask them what it was. I just saw it and took the drug and hoped I was all right later.

It was really dangerous.

The girl that I was picking up with every day, I sent her a text once to come round to my house after school to have a smoke and her mum actually found her phone and read the text. She then told my mum.

My mum said she didn’t think I was loyal any more. She didn’t want me around. She didn’t trust me. She didn’t want to give me money. And that was it for me and her. Our relationship had completely gone and it was up to me whether I rebuild it again.

And that really hurt me that I’d hurt her that much after everything she’d done for me… I was very motivated to give up when I spoke to my mum. So we decided that I was going to quit from there.

After a while it kind of got to the point where I would just go downstairs and be like, look I’m feeling anxious. Can we have a chat? She spoke to me as if, like this was my life, it was my decision and if I was going to change it was going to be down to me.

I could have made better decisions. I could've turned to my friends or my family instead of turning to drugs when I was upset or angry. It’s always made out to be so glamorous and fun, but it’s not actually as good as everyone thinks.