Cast your mind back to 2013. In February that year, Tesco admitted – with very long faces – they’d been selling spaghetti bolognese which was comprised of 60% horse meat. Soon, we found out it wasn’t just Tesco who’d been selling such products. I’d give you the list, but you might feel hoarse afterwards.

Jokes aside, this is what came to mind for me after reading a story about what drugs harm reduction charity The Loop found after attending the Lost Village festival in Lincolnshire last weekend. Out of all the MDMA they tested, only half of it contained any actual MDMA.

The rest were filled with substitutes – a bit like you’d get at a supermarket with your online shopping, only totally undeclared and potentially very dangerous. For example, eutylone was in some of them – a problem that Australia and New Zealand encountered from late last year.

So what’s causing the problem? Mixmag cite Brexit as a reason in their article on the subject – good guess, but wrong. No, it’s because of the high cost of transporting these goods around the world and the currently low number of countries where clubs are open. For example, they’re currently open across Britain, but not on the island of Ireland or large swathes of Europe.

And no one yet knows what winter will do to coronavirus cases, meaning the uncertainty is likely to continue. Profit margins are down, hence cheaper substitutes are being used. And without widespread testing, no one has a clue what they’re actually taking.

It’s almost as if the Home Office refusing to respond to a recent report about drugs testing facilities is criminally negligent…

By The Editor

Editor-in-chief at Amateur’s House.