Following their research showing that real ecstasy pills have all but vanished from Britain's nightclubs over the last two years, Radio 1's Newsbeat has now revealed that club-goers are also drifting away from the previously popular Hermesetas.
Anecdotal reports that the pills are no longer having the same effect have been confirmed by police who say that the majority of seized Hermesetas tablets now contain virtually none of the active ingredient saccharin. This low quality, along with the retention of the product's horrible aftertaste, is pushing clubbers onto stronger tablets such as the aspartame based Canderel or even the infamously dangerous Splenda, which uses sucralose as its main psychoactive ingredient.
Users are being advised to take extreme care as some shadowy importers, such as Aldi, are beginning to 'cut' Canderel tablets with lesser sweeteners like Hermesetas Gold and even acesulfame-k powder, reducing the amount of expensive aspartame contained in each chemical nugget in the relentless hunt for higher profits. Fellow supplier Lidl have been keen to distance themselves from Aldi's practises, knowing full well that many customers simply can't tell the difference between the two shops and use their names interchangeably.
Police are calling for a government-funded initiative to quell 'untrue rumours' about alternative sweetening products. 'There is absolutely no truth that heroin is as sweet as sugar,' said Chief Constable Mark Parsons, 'and cocaine may have zero calories but it also has zero sweetening ability. There is, however, some evidence that mixing cannabis into their Ready Brek of a morning will stop your kids pestering for jam or honey, which helps their dental hygiene no-end.'
Worryingly, some club-goers are now experimenting further afield to try and get their sugar-like high. 'I tried using mephedrone but it just made me really skitty and didn't increase the sweetness of my coffee at all,' said one nightclub visitor, 'and I found sucralose products like Splenda far too strong for me to handle on a night out, so I'm sticking with Canderel for now even though it gives me the shits.'
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