Hugh’ I’ve only ever actually done one drug. It’s MDMA and the reason I’ve done that is the first time I tried it was long after other people. It was in Year 13 I think. Like the most ridiculous way because someone thought it would be funny to put it in my drink. I mean like really awful, like a friend. Not a close friend but like and then I had, I was. I could tell I was on it and it, I didn’t feel that bad. And then that is literally only the only drug I’ve ever done since and I’ve only really. I did it a few times at university in London but mostly just at the festival because festivals are a time when it’s like, you know you’re not. You know it’s just a, not an excuse but it’s kind of a…

Ben’ You do have a different mindset.

Hugh’ It’s the only slightly acceptable environment where you can behave in that manner, kind of drinking all day.

No. Well I mean I might if I’m drunk or every now and then if a load of friends are but I would never kind of buy it. I’ve never, actually I’ve never ever bought a drug ever. I’ve never bought anything so that’s quite. I’d only if it was offered I think.

And MDMA where have you tried it, with friends?

With friends and at festivals but again I’ve never bought it.

I’ve just, if friends have excess or something or they are ok. That was one thing I always said to myself, I would never, I’d never buy.

So you take them quite occasionally?

No, no not at all.

Not at all. Ok.

I mean I have over the last two years I’ve probably taken it about five or no maybe it’s been six and seven times I’d say.

But no I haven’t for example I haven’t done it all summer.

Always in the context of being with friends so in a…?

I mean yeah for example it’s a university thing all over again. I would never do it in [place] on like a normal night.

No?

No. It’s yeah I wouldn’t.

So why do you think you do it there, at uni?

Probably because it’s under the kind of title of, it’s the whole context of uni. It’s kind of experimentation and all that kind of stuff.

I don’t know. I think that it is actually an excuse for trying new things.

You know because I know with my parents that’s when they tried things and it’s when people are renowned for experimenting.

I had what you, you call the come down the next day where you have the low after the high but, I was aware of that and it didn’t seem that bad to be honest I just felt pretty tired [slight laugh].

How did you feel

Just, quite lethargic, [sighs], just kind of lower, I wouldn’t say kind of depressed as such or anything but, just, the sort of, the low that you get after the high not necessarily always drug related even, if I do something now there’s adrenaline from doing something that, sports-wise, and get the adrenaline afterwards you always kind of get a low after the, after the buzzand it’s probably more, more low than, yeah, because the drug gives you quite a high, you have quite a low afterwards but, I guess the best way I can kind of describe is almost like similar to being sad, you just feel a bit, sad but, not badly, I was aware that you have the low after the high and someone had explained that to me so, I knew that’s what it was and it, and it was probably only the next day and then the, the following day after I was fine, it just what I’d call the, the drug equivalent of a hangover after you, you’ve got drunk and you have a hangover the next day it’s, I’d say it was the kind of the equivalent from having the ecstasy you have the, have the low the next day just, lie around, eat some food, watch some movies and then, yeah the day after that it’d be back to normal

Again what were your main motivations to do that? Why did you try them?

That was curiosity I’d say, definitely curiosity. With ecstasy was curiosity. I did my first, first pill at carnival, Notting Hill Carnival and I’m not going to lie it was the best carnival I’ve ever had. I’m not going to deny that the feeling of being on ecstasy is an amazing feeling but it’s so amazing that I’m never going to do it again because otherwise I won’t leave it alone kind of thing [laugh]. So I just leave it over there.

Can you elaborate more on that one. How many, for how long did you do it?

I wasn’t really using ecstasy every day or anything like that. It was here and there because the come down was so awful that you just felt the roof of your mouth was so sore. Your joints and body would ache, your jaw that could ache where it had been stuck like that because that’s what it does. Yeah and then I’d see some pictures of the night before and stuff and my eyes were like… and I looked like this and it’s just really bad [laugh].

I didn’t do that too often.

Ok so the come downs were quite?

Yeah they was bad. And plus my older sisters had always made. My older sisters had done them and they used to tell me stories of my dad making them after going to a rave and getting back at 6 in the morning pilling out of their faces. He used to make them sit in a chair in front of him and they had to come down there and learn their lesson. You want to go and do that you’re going to sit there and you’re not going to go to sleep or [dda dda dda dda da]. You’re going to feel what you did last night kind of thing. Even though the best thing is to go to sleep, drink water, revive yourself and refresh your body. But that’s not what he did. I’d always heard of them talking about it but at the time I did actually feel like ecstasy was more of a sort of. I looked at it as a scummy drug. Like it had a stigma around it that only low life people did that kind of thing. And I didn’t see myself as low life even though on the outside perspective I probably was. Well I wasn’t but that would be people’s perceptions from an outside perspective, yeah.

Did you experience any, did you have any bad experience or? An experience which you were scared of?

We had gone to a rave in the town centre with him, and we had got in no problems, nobody asked us for ID because we were like done up to the nines and, I actually took some Ecstasy pills, and I had actually taken too many and, that night when I had taken too many I had really bad reaction to one I like I took, obviously to the amount that I had taken, and I just remember standing there in the middle of this place which, like was, it’s like the Guildhall where now I walk through to pay my bills, so you know, I see this place all the time that they had a rave there back in the day. And I remember just standing there and being really violently sick like, like proper like throwing up green stuff and everything and it was horrible, it was horrible. And like I would look round like and everyone else was the same, everyone was on Ecstasy and it was like kind of the culture of these events, I don’t think they do them anymore, but it was kind of the culture of, everyone done it there and you know, because it was so easily available to me, I mean I perhaps should have stuck with just the one or something and I might have been alright, but it was because my, like my friend’s boyfriend he sold them and so we were, again we didn’t have to pay for anything, I think when you don’t have to pay for stuff it makes it easier to take more of it and, you know, and, I mean he, in terms of like safety in these raves we was always okay because we knew that he would get us home safe and that but, looking back on it now the things we were, like the amount of pills we were putting down our throat it wasn’t a safe amount, in any shape or form, and it, it sort of showed in our health as well, like the being sick and the dizziness and the odd, and one time I was at a flat in the town, after one of these raves and I carried on taking some more pills when I got back to this flat. And I got really compulsive and started like pulling my hair out, like kind of just, like I couldn’t control it, it was like I just kept going like that, like to my hair, I kept fidgeting with it, and the next thing I know I had like clumps of like hair in-between my fingers where I had just been going like that for so long, like a compulsive thing, like we, a shaking of the lip and I will always remember like the next morning your mouth would be so dry and your lips would be in a terrible state because you had just bitten, you know, bit them or, been shaking and the stuff like, from obviously from the effects of Ecstasy and you did, and you obviously you don’t notice all these sort of thing at the time when you’re doing it, and it’s only the next morning and you think gosh’ like what have I done?’ you know and, I didn’t realise I was that bad last night.