The media have been reporting on a new “legal high” that is being sold in the UK and online under the name “Ivory Wave.”

Fascinatingly, sellers, users or the police do not seem to know what chemical compounds the white powder contains or its legality. Some newspapers are reporting that the mixture contains MDPV, which is currently an illegal class B drug so therefore is not a “legal high.”

Ivory wave is being marketed on websites as “bath salts” that are “100% legal in the UK” and the instructions for use on one of the websites selling the drug states, “add the contents to a hot bath to naturally soften the water which will leave you feeling very soothed and relaxed.”

The manufacturer states that the ingredients are “Epsom Salts, Sodium Barcarbonate, Sodium Chloride, minerals, trace elements and naturally occurring amino acids.”

However people posting on Internet forums frequented by stimulant users believe that the mixture contains MDPV as well as other stimulant drugs. Ivory wave came to the attention of media recently when someone jumped/fell off a cliff after taking it. We don't know if they mixed it with alcohol or whatever else, and what actual chemicals they imbibed we shall probably never know.

There is so much lack of information or disinformation surrounding the drug that it would be difficult for someone buying or selling Ivory Wave to know what might or might not be in it, whether they are supposed to drink it, eat it, bathe in it, snort it or shove it where the sun don't shine, let alone where s/he stands within the law.

The media adds to the confusion, partly by publicizing 'a drug' that can be purchased by anyone with access to a credit card but mainly by publishing misleading and conflicting information that undermines any legitimate warnings from anyone who genuinely knows what they're talking about.

Designer 'legal highs' overall reproduce the old 'hacker vs encryption arms race' scenario all over again: when a new “legal high” appears on the scene the media get hold of the story and the subsequent government (and public) hysteria leads to legislation banning the chemical compound, BUT “legal high” producers can make new chemical compounds faster than governments can ban them.

In many cases producers and sellers of “legal highs” also mix illegal stock into their new “legal high” products (technically making them illegal)...?

Analysis of five different products sold as 100% legal from online shops found a mixture of different banned substances. Two were made from mephedrone itself mixed with prescription drugs while another contained, MDPV and a lesser known class B drug fluromethcathinone, mixed with lidocaine (an anaesthetic typically used to cut cocaine).

The facts remain the same folks; it's 'if/then' thinking:

IF you buy anything on the internet/street THEN you have no idea what's in it until you get it into a lab.

IF you believe what it says on the packet or what the bloke in the bar said was in it, THEN you are being very naiive.

IF you offer your friends anything and you don't know what's in it THEN you are spiking them unless you make this clear before you start.

IF you mix anything with anything else and you don't know how they are likely to interact, THEN you are practising chemistry without due care and attention.