Research

We broke down what kind of research we would be needing to help plan/script our documentary, the areas that we should look into are the following

Cannabis
- Gateway drug?
- Content Of Cannabis - What is it laced with? - Adding glass, washing up liquid.


Bubble
- Death through Bubble?
- Mixing with alcohol
- Distinctive rash/scars?

Social
- Unemployment
- Environment

Physical
- The development on you?
- Munchies

Mental
- Paranoia
- Depression
- Dementia
- Short Term Memory
- Triggers?


Law
- Growing cannabis
- Possession
- Connection to other crimes
- Out of your depth

Primary Research - Ask Frank
http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/mephedrone#aka=Bubble

This has pretty much everything you need to know about Bubble.

Mephedrone AKA - 4-MMC, Bounce, Bubble, Charge, Drone, M-Cat, MC, Meow Meow, Meph, Miaow, White Magic.

What is mephedrone? Mephedrone (often called ‘meow meow’) is a powerful stimulant and is part of the cathinone family, a group of drugs that are closely related to the  amphetamines – including amphetamine itself (often called ‘speed’), methamphetamine and ecstasy. There is very little evidence about mephedrone and what long-term effects it has, but there have reports of people hospitalised due to the short-term effects. 

Also, you can never be entirely sure that what you’re buying is actually mephedrone and not something else.

The main effects and risks of mephedrone include:

• Euphoria, alertness and feelings of affection towards the people  around you.
• Feelings of anxiety and paranoia.
• Mephedrone, or meow meow, can also overstimulate your heart and circulation; and can overstimulate your nervous system, with risk of fits.

What does mephedrone look like?

Mephedrone can be found as a fine white, off-white or a yellowish powder. It was originally sold over the internet as a ‘legal’ alternative to drugs like speed, ecstasy and cocaine.

But to get around the law, dealers said that the mephedrone they were selling was plant food or a bath salt and not for human consumption. On average a gram of meph costs between £20 and £30.

How do people take Meph?

Meph is usually snorted like cocaine or is wrapped in paper and swallowed ("bombed" is a slang name used for this). It can also be found as capsules and pills and can be smoked. In rare cases Bubble has been injected.

Injecting Meow Meow, and sharing injecting equipment including needles and syringes, runs the risk of the person injecting catching or spreading a virus such as HIV or Hepatitis C.

There is also the risk that veins may be damaged and that something nasty will develop, such as an abscess or clot.

What does MC do?

White Magic is often described as a mix between amphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine. The effects of Bounce last for about an hour, but this can vary

• It can make you feel alert, confident, talkative and euphoric - and some people will temporarily feel strong affection to those around them
• Charge can make users feel sick, paranoid and anxious, and it can cause vomiting and headaches.
• It risks overstimulating and damaging your heart and your circulation.
• It also risks overstimulating and damaging your heart and your circulation.
• It also risks overstimulating your nervous system, which may cause hallucinations, feelings of agitation and even fits.
• It can reduce your appetite, so you don't feel hungry.

Other effects that people have reported include heart palpitations, insomnia, loss of short-term memory, vertigo, grinding of teeth, sweating and uncomfortable changes in body temperature.

Secondary Research.
First hand experience with the drug, reported by Max Pemberton on the 20th March 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7481469/I-took-mephedrone-and-I-liked-it.html

So what are the risks?

Taking Meph does involve risks - and the dangers and long term effects and becoming clearer as much reports emerge. Here's what we know:

• Users have reported blue or cold fingers - this is probably because Miaow affects the heart and the circulation.
• Some users have also had severe nosebleeds after snorting Meph.
• There were six deaths involving MC reported in 2010 in England and Wales.

Secondary Research

This isn't strictly true as this report from the BBC back in 2010 says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10184803 

• Overheating has been a significant cause of deaths when other amphetamine-type drugs, such as ecstasy, have been used along with Meph.

Meph and alcohol

You increase the risks to yourself if you combine alcohol with mephedrone or any other drug that causes a ‘high’ – including increasing the risk of death.

What is mephedrone cut with?

Mephedrone is sometimes mixed or cut with other substances, such as caffeine. In some cases, the powder people buy from a dealer contains no mephedrone at all!

Can you get addicted to mephedrone?

The simple answer is – yes – you can get addicted to mephedrone. Reports say that mephedrone use can lead to a strong psychological dependence on the drug, and can lead to the user craving – and taking – increasing amounts. 

This kind of behaviour increases all of the above risks to your health. Some users say that once they have started a mephedrone session, they find it very difficult to stop until they’ve used their entire supply - this is sometimes called ‘fiending’.

Meph and the law

• Meph is a Class B drug - so it's illegal to have for yourself, give away or sell.
• Possession is illegal and can get you up to five years in jail and/or an unlimited fine
• Supplying someone else, even your friends, can get you fourteen years in jail and/or an unlimited fine.

What if you’re caught?

If the Police catch you with mephedrone, they’ll always take some action. This could include a formal caution, arrest and prosecution.

A conviction for a drug-related offence could have a serious impact. It can stop you visiting certain countries – for example the United States – and limit the types of jobs you can apply for.

Did you know?

Like drinking and driving, driving when high is illegal - and you can still be unfit to drive the day after using mephedrone. You can get a heavy fine, be disqualified from driving or even go to prison.

Allowing other people to use drugs in your house or any other premises is illegal. If the police catch someone using drugs in a club they can prosecute the landlord, club owner or person holding the party.

Primary Research

Ask Frank

http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/cannabis

Cannabis AKA: Bhang, Bud, Dope, Draw, Ganja, Grass, Hash, Hashish, Herb, Marijuana, Pot, Puff, Resin, Sensi, Sinsemilla, Skunk, Weed.

What is cannabis? It’s the most widely-used illegal drug in Britain. But there’s a whole lot more to learn about it, and what it does to you.

• Cannabis is naturally occurring - it is made from the cannabis plant.
• The main active chemical in it is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC for short).
• THC is the ingredient in cannabis that can make you feel very chilled out, happy and relaxed.
• THC can also make you hallucinate, meaning that it can alter your senses, so that you might see, hear or feel things in a different way to normal.

A big myth about cannabis is that it’s safe because it’s natural. Cannabis has some very real effects on your mood, as well as creating longer-term problems:

• Cannabis can make you feel very anxious and even paranoid.
• Using it has also been linked, in some people, to serious, long term mental health problems.

Cannabis is still the most commonly used illegal drug. However, it isn’t as popular as it used to be: just 1 in 6 people aged 16-24 had tried it in 2010/11.

What are the different types of cannabis? 

Although it’s all from the same plant, cannabis comes in many different forms.

Hash

• Hash is a black or brown soft lump made from the resin of the cannabis plant. It's much less common in the UK than it used to be. It costs about £26 per quarter ounce.

Grass/weed

• Grass, also known as weed, is made from the dried leaves and flowering parts of the female cannabis plant and looks like tightly packed dried herbs. This traditional grass was normally imported and much weaker than the "skunk" types of cannabis usually sold now. Grass costs around £30 per quarter ounce.

Skunk

• Skunk is the term used to refer to strong forms of herbal cannabis that have increasingly dominated the UK market. They are, on average 2-4 times stronger than cannabis that was used in the past. They include: Sinsemilla, with no seeds; homegrown, plants grown indoors with the aid of artificial light, heat and nutrients "skunk", which has a particularly strong smell and netherweed, an imported form of strong herbal cannabis, skunk costs around £50 per quarter ounce.

Cannabis Oil

• Cannabis Oil is a sticky, dark honey-coloured substance and is much less common.

Cannabis Oil may be less common but this blogged report I came across seems to suggest that it could help prevent cancer.

http://greenwellness.org/cannabis-oil-a-real-miracle-medicine

How is cannabis taken?

There are a few ways of taking cannabis:

• Most people mix it with tobacco, roll it up into something known as a "spliff" or a "joint", and then smoke it.
• Some people smoke it using a type of pipe called a bong.
• Others drink or eat it mixed in cookies, cakes or even cups of tea. Taken this way, the effects of cannabis can be more difficult to predict or to control. It takes cannabis longer to get in to your body by this route; and so if unpleasant side effects do start to develop, it's too late to do very much about it except wait for the effects to reach their peak and than wear off.

What are the effects of cannabis?

Cannabis has a number of different effects. It is classed as a sedating and hallucinogenic drug. Its effects can turn out to be pleasant or unpleasant:

• Taking cannabis can make people feel chilled out, relaxed and happy, and they may get the giggles or become very talkative.
• It can make you more aware of your senses, and the hallucinogenic effects can even give you a feeling of time slowing down.
• It can make you feel very hungry - this is sometimes called "getting the munchies".
• Some people have one or two drags on a joint and feel light-headed, faint and sick. This is sometimes called a "whitey".
• Cannabis may cause feelings of anxiety, suspicion, panic and paranoia.

Cannabis can mess with your mind

• Cannabis can freak you out - it can cause feelings of anxiety, suspicion, panic and paranoia.
• For people with illnesses such as schizophrenia, cannabis can cause a serious relapse.
• Regular cannabis use is known to be associated with an increase in the risk of later developing psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia; and if you have a family background of mental illness, you may also have an increased risk.
• Cannabis can affect the way the brain works. Regular, heavy use makes it difficult to learn and concentrate and research has linked cannabis use to poor exam results. This is a potentially serious risk if you're young. People who take a lot of cannabis can also find they lack motivation.

Cannabis can mess with your body. 

• Smoking cannabis can make asthma worse, and cause wheezing in non-asthma sufferers.
• It can increase the heart rate and affect blood pressure, which can be especially harmful for those with heart disease.
• It is reported that frequent use of cannabis may affect fertillity. It can cut a man's sperm count and can suppress ovulation in women.
• If you're pregnant, smoking cannabis may increase the risk of your baby being born smaller than expected.

What is the effect of mixing cannabis and alcohol?

Mixing cannabis with alcohol can have particularly serious consequences - the accident rate is 16 times higher than for cannabis or alcohol alone.

What is cannabis cut with?

Cannabis may be ‘cut’ with other substances to increase the weight and the dealer’s profits.

• Impurities in cannabis may include a variety of substances, with laboratory-confirmed reports of glass and pesticides being found in herbal forms of cannabis; and with hash/resin frequently being mixed with a range of substances to increase weight and the dealer's profits. In April 2010, a study, looking into contaminants in drugs reported that there were cases of cannabis being adulterated with henna, lead and aluminium.
• Any impurities you smoke could be inhaled in to the lungs alongside the wide range of chemicals is naturally found in cannabis.
• Like tobacco, cannabis has lots of chemical "nasties". So if you smoke it, cannabis could cause lung disease and possibly cancer too, especially when smoked with tobacco.

Can you get addicted to cannabis?

The simple answer is ‘yes, people do become dependent on cannabis’. This means you can get 'cravings’ for cannabis, and may have difficulty staying off it even if you recognise using it has started to cause you problems.

And regular users can also get some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms on stopping, including irritability, mood changes, feeling sick, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping; and even sweating, shaking and diarrhoea in some people.

And regular users can also get some unpleasant

You’re also at real risk of getting addicted to nicotine, or staying addicted to it, if you roll your spliffs with tobacco.

Cannabis and the law

• Cannabis is a Class B drug - it's illegal to have for yourself, give away or sell.
• Possession is illegal whatever you're using it for, including pain relief. The penalty is up to five years in jail.
• Supplying someone else can get you fourteen years and an unlimited fine.

What if you're caught with cannabis?

If the Police catch you with cannabis, they’ll always take some action. This could be a warning, a reprimand, a formal caution, a fixed penalty or an arrest and possible conviction.

A conviction for a drug-related offence could have a pretty serious impact. It can stop you visiting certain countries – for example the United States – and limit the types of jobs you can apply for.

This site backs up a lot of what I found on Frank
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

We brought up in class the possibility that perhaps Cannabis could lead to harder drugs, this news story form the BBC says that it isn't a reality.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2538065.stm

Documentaries - Production Day 1

This brief is all about documentaries, we was informed that we will be working with the student union to create a documentary about the dangers of drug abuse.
We started by looking at what goes into Documentaries, the various styles and content that we see in the majority of them. The purpose of documentaries is to Entertain, Educate or Inform us, they go about this using a large variety of types.

These include:
Wildlife - A nature style program, usually with a celebrity voice over (particularly our national treasure David Attenborough) is which they will discuss a animal species. These are wildly popular and are shot in quite exotic locations, the shows are primarily dominated by cut away, this is maybe because it is hard to control animals in the wild for such a large period of times, they will edit a lot of footage together to form some sort of narrative, this personifies the animals to entice viewers.
I would personal say that this type of style is what kicked of the "Celebrity Led" style of documentary, in which they would send of a well known celeb to exotic locations to teach us about perhaps an animal, a country that a charity is helping (Comic Relief and similar televised charities.)
or a road trip across the country (anything with Billy Connolly and Stephen Fry in America series.)



Historical - All documentaries are cheap, that is why so many are commissioned and made, but Historical documentaries seem to be the cheapest, they are dominated by cut away of past footage and facts, this style of documentary contain interviews with "experts" to add clarity to the facts that the narrator is giving the audience.



Countdown - A countdown documentary contains a list of events, characters, subjects, etc about a particular topic, celebrities and experts will then talk to camera about each thing on the list. For example, BBC3 do a yearly documentary called "Most Annoying People Of..." in which it counts down 100 famous faces and figures who have annoyed the british public that year, and why. Although this style is used quite a lot, especially in the early 2000's in which Jimmy Carr used to host a "100 most..." seemingly every week, there not what I would consider a traditional documentary, even when writing this I am still pondering whether I have made a mistake, we do still see a lot of what we come to expect in documentaries, such as interviews, narration, name tags, titles, heavy editing, vox pops, a library of footage/pictures, music that relates to the tone of the programme.



Docu-Drama
Docu-Soaps - These are documentaries that heavily concentrate on the drama to entice an audience, this can be anything from series like "The Secret Millionaire". Anything life changing really, it also ties into a style called the "Personal Documentaries". Programmes that concentrate on one person or several people going through a similar problem or coping with a particular issue, examples of these include "Deaf Teens - Hearing The World For The First Time" on BBC3. These are incredibly popular as they are hard hitting and emotional, I feel like this is the style of documentary the majority of our class will use due to the nature of our brief.



These are just but a few examples of the styles of documentaries, I could produce pages upon pages of various styles, and even saying that those above are the "popular" styles would be an exaggeration, it is the topics, people and places that makes a successful documentary.

So before we could begin to think about making our own documentaries, we had to find and watch them to see these styles that we had just noted down in work, and to write down what it is that we generally see in each of them, and maybe if there was any similarities between documentaries, despite the fact that they wouldn't be about the same subject.

The first documentary that we was advised to catch was a recent episode of BBC's Panorama, as it was on the subject of Alcohol abuse. It threw a lot at me within the first 30 seconds, they showed snippits of people sharing intimiate stories about how desperate they were for there next fix of alcohol, these included the "celebrity" narrator, who was also giving pieces to camera as he had similar problems with alcohol in the past, I felt like they put these snippits at the beginning to entice people who would perhaps be flicking through channels and catch it, they also dangle the few snippits of celebrities being interviewed about the alcohol abuse they had in the past because we as a nation are infatuated with the celebrity world, of course there was only one interview with a past alcoholic celebrity (not including Cambell, the narrator).
Speaking of Cambell, it was strange the several parts he had to play in this episode, for starters he was the narrator, to provide us with statistics and facts, he was an interviewer/host to get the stories out of others, but he was also the victim, so there was serveral points in which he was sat down and having a one on one with the camera, these were moments in which he shared his own experiences and opinions about the topic, maybe strange was a bad choice of words but it was certainly something I hadn;t seen in other documentaries.
The choice of cutaways was interesting, it showed Cambell jogging around his local area, perhaps getting across the message of a more healthier lifestyle now he has quit the drink, or maybe just putting out a message of "exercise more" to us the audience.

The next documentary I watched was an american Docu-Drama called The King Of Kongs - A Fistful Of Quarters.
This was a fantastic documentary about the world of competative gaming, the biggest problem I had with it was that it felt scripted, almost like this was faked, or that the people was told to only say or share certain points of the story, for example at one point the "antagonist" of the Docu-Drama is saying that with all the luck that he has, he feels sorry for the poor bastard who is down on his luck, it then cuts to the 2nd main character, the "protaganist" discussing how he had just recently lost his job, and the tough time his family is going through. Maybe this is down to editing more than a faked/scripted documentary, but it did take me out of the film for a short while.
I also should say that I choose the words antagonist and protaganist as King Of Kongs really does paint the picture of Good Vs Evil, hero trying to beat the villain, again, this could be due to the editing, or the scripted dialogue, the "antagonist" of the piece could actually be the nicest guy you could ever meet, but they show him to be the biggest D-Bag.
This documentary didn't teach me anything about the world we are shown, I know about as much about the world of competative gaming coming out of that hour an half then I did entering it, it concentrates more heavily on the struggle between the two main characters, as that is far more interesting then the gaming itself, of course I feel like I watched a drama/soap rather than a documentary but it still entertained me, and we forget that some documentaries set out to achieve that.

I walked away from King Of Kongs with a theory that Americans tell a narrative through pieces to camera, vox pops and text, the american documentaries that I had previously watched didn't have any narration, whereas British documentaries always seemed to have a narrator (again, I was thinking back to previous ones I had watched, especially a lot of wildlife documentaires.)
The next documentary I watched helped my theory as well, despite it's wide generallisation.

I found "The World Of Compulsive Hoarders" on Youtube, it's an interesting people piece showing us just two of many many people who have a problem with throwing away items/objects and who then become hoarders.
The only difference I found between this documentary and others I had previously watched is that it didn't concentrate on interviews with these people to drive the narrative, instead, it took the two people the documentary concentrated on and brought them together, one to help out, and to share experiences. Of course they didn't do this all the time, sometimes it would be members of family visiting (with a narrator informing us of the narration and back story)
This seems to be another technique used in Docu-Dramas, to bring a camera into someones life but make them go about there normal business or talk to other people of interest to drive the documentary, there doesn't need to be a cameraman asking questions, and they don't need to sit the hoarder down and let them speak to the camera (there are still parts in which that happens.)


But my theory was broken when I came across a documentary on my Xbox 360 of all things.
It was called Nightmares In Red White And Blue, a newly released documentary about the history of horror movies in america that was promoted on the Xbox, this had a strong narrative that took us through nearly 80 years of cinema pieced together with a narrator.
It was when I was watching this that I noticed the titles, they related to the subject, it was coloured red, white and blue with a "horror" style font, this may seem obvious but it would really take me out of the film if they were anything different, it is something so subtle and something you wouldn't give a second thought too, but it is an important part of a successful piece.





To further prove how wrong my theory was, I came across a recent Channel 4 program called "My Social Network Stalker" A intence British documentary with no narrator, the narrative is told through the
victim of quite a scary case of harassment recounting her story. The spaces of time are filled in using graphics...

...again, the text and graphics relate to documentary, in this case it is in the style of a text message, which, due to the fact that this is about harrassment and cyber bullying belong there...

...even little things like nametags looking like a mouse clicking on something will be something I have to think about when creating my very own documentary, now of course I can't have a needle instead of a mouse or something equally innapropriate due to the nature of the topic we are doing.

I then came across a few documentaries that are both quite similar, but very different in the same way, they are a series on BBC3 called "Bizzare Crime" a lighthearted series that recounts the weird and wonderful crimes that have been  comminted by dumb criminals, much to the same style of "Americans Dumbest..." etc. The other was another Channel 4 documentary called "The Most Offensive Joke In The World" a countdown style documentary which goes through what we as a nation consider the most offensive joke in the world, it was an interesting watch, I mostly bring it up due to fact that it's narrative is told through a countdown, which must mean that that style's research is completed with polls taken from the public, or the "celebrities" in which are shown on the show discussing the jokes, and there own philosyphy/stories/opinions on those jokes.

I bring up Bizzare Crime as well due to the lighthearted nature of the programme, I saw a strange parrallel between the lighthearted nature of Jokes being presented and talked about in a serious was and the hard hitting world of crime being taken about as seriously as a game of cops and robbers. Bizzare Crime uses a lot of silly graphics and funny noises to poke fun of stupid people acting out stupid crimes, such as a man who has already been convicted trying to rob a CCTV store, and being completly oblivious to his face being on every camera around the shop and surrounding area.