Smart Drugs
I‘ve just watched a programme called Body Shots about smart drugs which was fascinating. It had a rare interview with the king and queen of the psychonauts - Dr Alexander Shulgin and his wife Anne. My first company was a smart drugs and herbal high company called The Herbal Highway, which I launched back in 1994. I was working at Glastonbury Festival like I did every summer, and on the Sunday night I took a trip down to the dance tent. I saw a huge banner proclaiming ‘Ecstacy available here!’, and came across herbal E’s for the very first time. I was really excited to find a safe, legal, natural alternative to illegal drugs. Within a few weeks I was selling them by mail order, and then from a website.

I worked with my bofriend 'Lord Alex' as he was known in the Bristol party scene. We met a registered herbalist and mad chemist called Simon who helped us devise our recipies. Soon we were making our own products called Upstart [for energy], Chill [to relax], and Recover [post party detox.] I even had two [legitimate] pill making machines. We were doing pretty well and had been invited to a 'meeting of minds' in Cornwall with other herbal high manufacturers, like Herman and the Hippy. That’s where I head about the MAL8 legislation.

Due to pressures from the pharmaceutical companies [If We Can’t Patent It and Make Millions – We’ll Force the Government to Ban It!] and led by the media [We Must Protect Our Children from Evil Hippies and their Herbal Drugs!], the UK government had changed the law. They started out trying to ban all herbs including culinary and essential oils, but toned it down when there was a public outcry. Instead of banning our herbal mixes they removed our ability to tell people how they worked. Anyone selling a compound of herbs that “alters the body’s natural physiological functions when ingested” [water does that] needed a medicinal license.

To apply for a medicinal license cost £30,000 per product, and it would have been hopeless even if I'd had the money. In a radio interview a representative of the British Medical Association admitted that even if we applied for a license we would never be granted one, as our products were clearly for recreational, not medicinal use. Overnight, safe, legal, natural alternatives were taken away from responsible club kids and it was back to illegal drugs and associating with dealers.

The US led War on Drugs causes untold misery. Not that Americans aren't as high as kites. They make up 7% of the world’s population and consume over 60% of the world's presciption drugs. When you start medicating children as young as three, you should realise there's a problem. My inbox is overflowing with spam offering to sell me US made drugs, and yet pot is illegal. The trouble is they can’t patent a plant. I hope the NZ government follows the UK’s lead and decriminalises soon. It’s heartbreaking that people can still be put in jail for smoking a herb, that's been used safely for years in pain relief.