Posts Tagged ‘drug dealer’
Street Skag Dealer Or Synthetic Cannabinoid Pusher. What’s The Difference?
Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists (let’s call them synthetic cannabinoids) are highly toxic, dangerous substances associated with a range of extremely serious, potentially fatal, medical conditions.
Synthetic cannabinoids are intended to mimic the effects of THC but they can be 50 or even 100 times more potent. They also bind more tightly to the CB1 receptor meaning the effect can be more intense and longer lasting. They are nothing like real cannabis. They don’t have the balancing effect of CBD and other cannabinoids. There is no ‘entourage effect‘, now known to be the real engine of the therapeutic and pleasant effects of real cannabis.
Cannabis is probably the least toxic, therapeutic and psychoactive substances known to science but these nasty chemicals are the very opposite. Why would anyone sell them? They are the product of prohibition and sold by immoral, irresponsible, exploitative drug dealers who are no better than those that sell dirty heroin or crack on the streets to the most vulnerable people. Most synthetic cannabinoids are sold to children, teenagers or very young adults.
Synthetic cannabinoids are associated with seizure, stroke, severe kidney problems, panic attacks, cardiac arrest, severe psychotic episodes, fever, dehydration, paranoia, hallucinations, supraventricular tachycardia – the list goes on and on.
Of course, you have no idea what you’re getting, which synthetic cannabinoid is in the ‘Spice‘ or ‘K2‘ that you’ve been sold or, indeed, whether there’s a cocktail. Many of these products sold as ‘legal highs‘ actually contain substances that have been banned, so buying them doesn’t even protect you from prosecution. Well it might, or it might not. You just don’t know. The shops that sell these products have no idea what’s in them either.
You have no idea how they are manufactured, in what conditions, using what precursors or what dangerous chemical processes. You have no idea how they are mixed into herbal material if they look like weed or into a squidgy black substance if they look like hash. I’ve seen Chris Bovey of Totnes, Europe’s biggest dealer in synthetic cannabinoids, mix his fake hash. He uses a food mixer and just adds random amounts of anonymous white powder to whatever is the base substance. God knows what that already contains.
Bovey told me that he has a chemist working in Austria who comes up with the compounds for his ‘legal highs‘. He then uses laboratories in China to manufacture them. He showed me a canister, rather like a large tea caddy, covered in Chinese writing and symbols. There was no measurement of any sort. He just tipped several slugs of the powder into the mixing bowl and then a bit more for luck.
I do wonder though whether his motives are more sinister. Why would Bovey, who claims to have made more than £500,000.00 personally from selling ‘Spice‘, want to see cannabis legalised? It doesn’t really make any sense. His role may be about subverting the cannabis campaign in the UK. He has certainly succeeded in creating massive negative energy and meanwhile his ‘legal highs‘ empire is expanding worldwide, even as far as Japan.
Irrespective of Bovey’s involvement in this nasty business, steer well clear of synthetic cannabinoids. I am not calling for them to be banned. That would only drive them underground and create yet another criminal market. The real answer is to legalise, regulate and tax cannabis and MDMA, both relatively safe substances. If we did that then the market for these horrible synthetics would dry up. New Zealand has gone halfway there already with its Psychoactive Substances Act 2013, very intelligent and progressive legislation. It’s a model that the rest of the world would do well to follow and I see no reason why cannabis and MDMA couldn’t be included in it.
References:
Synthetic cannabis risk ‘vast’: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/global-drug-survey/9945906/Synthetic-cannabis-risk-vast
Synthetic cannabinoid JWH-018 and psychosis: An explorative study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871611000639
Severe Toxicity Following Synthetic Cannabinoid Ingestion: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15563650.2011.609822
The synthetic cannabinoid Spice as a trigger for an acute exacerbation of cannabis induced recurrent psychotic episodes: http://www.schres-journal.com/article/S0920-9964(09)00591-X/abstract
Understanding the dangers of the fake marijuana called ‘Spice’ or ‘K2’: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131002112426.htm
Why Synthetic Marijuana Is More Dangerous Than the Real Thing: http://www.livescience.com/18646-synthetic-marijuana-dangerous-health.html
Acute Kidney Injury Associated with Synthetic Cannabinoid Use: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6206a1.htm
A Shyster Lawyer To Defend A Scumbag Drug Dealer? Call Saul!
When Chris Bovey, Europe’s biggest dealer in highly toxic synthetic cannabinoids, needs a lawyer, who does he turn to?
The sartorial style is almost an exact match. It takes considerable skill to wear an expensive suit so it looks cheap. An oversized shirt collar and a polyester tie is an excellent start.
Such are the dubious talents of Pinder Reaux, Essex-based solicitors more used to prosecuting internet trolls like Bovey than defending them. Now specialising in representing porn stars, knock down prices are offered for legal services with puff pieces on daytime television in true white stilletto style.
In an astonishing display of unprofessional conduct and laughable self-congratulation, John ‘Saul’ Spyrou, a partner in Pinder Reaux, wrote about my action against Bovey on his firms’s website.
“… in certain cases, an uber-aggressive application can be made to strike the case out, often on procedural grounds.”
This blathering about his heroics in succeeding (for now) in his strike out application against a litigant in person says a lot about Spyrou. The only person who can claim credit for enabling Bovey (so far) to evade the consequences of his abuse is his delightful and dazzlingly sharp counsel, Yuli Takatsuki.
‘Call Saul’ is the necessary interloper between a villain and the skill necessary to delay and procrastinate over the truth. “Uber aggressive” is a phrase that reveals everything about its author and the veracity of the defence he pleads.
Climate Change Jolly In Cancun
My blogger-in-arms, Tory Ardvaark, calls it a “cocaine and hooker-fest” and he’s probably right. Johann Hari, my colleague on The Independent, says that the “next crash will be ecological – and nature doesn’t do bailouts”. See here.
So, who has the more incisive angle on the gathering next week in Mexico’s top holiday resort? It’s a strange choice of venue and does raise questions as to the real reason that so many will be flying there on government expenses. As destinations go it must be a CO2 hotspot. Maybe it’s even got it’s own hole in the ozone layer to match the nasal damage that so many visitors will be suffering? Hopefully, condoms will protect them from any other consequences of their debauchery. As for the conference though, it will probably be a waste of time, just like Copenhagen.
That idiot, Professor Phil Jones, at UEA’s Climate Change unit has got an awful lot to answer for. His absurd and dishonest behaviour has discredited climate change science. I think that while it would be stupid to ignore the idea of man-made climate change, it would be equally unwise to listen unquestioningly to those corrupt scientists who are mainly concerned with securing next year’s research grant. Both extremes of the argument are as unreliable as each other.
Thankfully during my lifetime and my childrens’ we won’t see catastrophic effects from climate change, even if the scientists prove to be right. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren are around, science will have got its act together a little more – what shall we say – scientifically? Of course, it may be too late by then.
The only thing that is certain is that Tory Ardvaark is right. They’re going to have a hell of a good time down Mehico way and the drug dealers and pimps will be coining it.