Transcript of the video: 

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Hi my names Mike Linnell. I’ve worked in the drugs field in Greater Manchester for over 40 years. I work for myself, but currently I coordinate the Greater Manchester Drug Early Warning System (DEWS). I also work on the Greater Manchester Trend study that happens annually. So predominantly, the drugs that are around as far as we know have changed slightly but you wouldn’t notice. Some people may be mis sold them. Some people may know they’re buying and have dine their research, but by and large the effects are fairly similar to MCAT.

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It seems to be that 4CMC is the current kind of drug and we found that both in orange powder at pride in tablets this weekend and if you look at the sited like WEDINOS where the Public Health Wales do testing, that seems to be the current one that’s around. This is a slightly different drug from MCAT, it’s a chloral, methcathinone rather than the methyl methcathinone. But basically, if people are going to use those drugs and we know that simplistic messages of telling people not to do things that they really enjoy is not going to make any difference anyway.

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I think the rules are that you can do as much research as you can, not just into the drugs you’re using. That would include if you’ve got access to some of their newer test strips or the reagent tests that people can do if you buy in bulk. You can send drugs off to the Public Health Wales system WEDINOS and get your test results back. It takes a few weeks or so but it is worth people doing that. I think the thing is I mentioned that we’ve got a local drug information system (EWS) in Greater Manchester. And we’re doing a drug trend study as well.

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I think in Greater Manchester the system consists of we’ve got over 1000 professionals who work with people who use drugs. If people have got concerns about individual drugs or patterns of behaviour or trends, let a professional know. Let a worker know that you’re in contact with either the needle exchange, LGBT service, wherever it is you go. And if that information is passed on, we can test drugs in certain circumstances if they’re handled into professionals as well. So, if there are real concerns pass that information on and it can mean that professionals are informed. And they can be the kind of appropriate response in terms of hard reduction advice. And letting other people know what the risk is.