by Ashleigh Cullen
Mephedrone is a new recreational drug on the illicit market. Although it was centre of media attention for some time,... more
Mephedrone is a new recreational drug on the illicit market. Although it was centre of media attention for some time, there is little research pertaining to its use and effects.The intention of this study was to examine the association between mephedrone,
cannabis and alcohol and mental health and well-being with regard to depressive symptoms. A total of 115 participants were sourced from social networking websites and drug related forums to complete a three part online questionnaire. The first stage investigated lifestyle and drug use, the second required completion of the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and finally reasons and opinions for mephedrone and other drug use were questioned. The data pertaining to lifestyle, drug use and was compared against CES-D depression scores in a one way ANOVA. There were no observed differences between mephedrone and alcohol use on depression scores, however, there was an observable difference between cannabis and mephedrone. Results illustrate that use of mephedrone has a higher potential for causing depressive symptoms than the use cannabis and alcohol, but not alcohol
alone, and that mephedrone users also use a wide variety of other drugs. Percieved benefits and increase in feelings of happiness were associated with consumption. The findings support the theory that users of mephedrone may suffer similar
neurochemical depletion to users of ecstasy, but it remains unclear whether this is due to mephedrone, or whether it is contribution from other drugs of use. This study has gathered a fair amount of additional qualitative research surrounding the use of mephedrone that may be of use to future larger-scale studies.
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