ALL LOVED UP

Close readers of this blog and those who pad alongside me, know my fascination with exotic substances and the footpad side of our sunny isle.

Here at last is some decent witty writing on one of my recent distractions.

Jerry Clarke gives it a good wry Low Life ring.

"‘It makes you all loved up’ ...

I googled MDMA. I had a vague idea it was similar to Ecstasy. It turned out to be the same thing, only in a crystalline form.

MDMA enters the neurons via the monoamine transporters and releases serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.

Reported subjective effects are euphoria; heightened libido; a strong sense of inner peace and self-acceptance; feelings of empathy, compassion, forgiveness and love; improved self-confidence.

Before it was banned in the US, psychotherapists gave MDMA to their patients as an aid to self-contemplation.

The only possible downside to my taking it, as far as I could see, would be sudden death. [My itals. Wonderful throwaway line]

This is a rare event, however. It is so rare, said one article, that while every death in Scotland from MDMA over a ten-year period was covered in the newspapers, only one in every 250 deaths from paracetamol, one in 50 deaths from diazepam, and one in every three from amphetamines got a mention.

Another potentially negative effect of taking MDMA would be the maximum seven years in prison if I was caught in possession of the stuff, and Trev’s life sentence if he was caught peddling it.

[Ditto, great line]

The Wikipedia article even explained how to make MDMA.

You need safrole, which is a colourless or slightly black oil extracted from the root-bark.

Or the fruit of Sassafras plant, the same stuff used for the manufacture of root beer.

Demand for safrole, it said, is causing rapid and illicit harvesting of the Cinnamomum perthenoxylon tree, particularly in the Cardamom mountains of Cambodia."