Meow Meow

The proposed crackdown comes in the wake of the deaths last week of friends Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, after they took the legal stimulant, a 'plant food' that has gained notoriety as a cut-price alternative to ecstasy and cocaine.

A senior Home Office official said it would be 'very surprising' if mephedrone was not banned for personal use later this year and designated as a Class C drug.

Report into the drug by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Government's illegal substance watchdog, was delayed by the sacking of top drugs adviser Professor David Nutt last October. He was axed by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after criticizing the Government's cannabis policy.

But now a report from the council into mephedrone is due on Mr. Johnson's desk by the end of the month.

A source said last night: 'Provided the scientific case is proven, it would be very surprising if this drug is not banned for personal use.'

Mephedrone, which sells for ฃ10 a gram, is highly addictive and is reported to have led to some 11-year-olds selling it to even younger schoolchildren.

In Gloucestershire, children as young as 13 are taking the drug, according to education officials.

At Cambridge University, a report by student newspaper The Tab claimed eight per cent of students had tried it. A second survey found that 25 per cent of clubbers at student bars in the city admitted trying the drug while partying during term time.

Students taking the 'legal high' claimed they had it delivered in large quantities to porters' lodges at their halls of residence.

Last night, the UK Drug Policy Commission, a charity set up to study Government drugs policy, demanded a new Category X for 'drugs of potential danger' - like mephedrone - to distinguish them from the current A, B and C classification of illegal substances.

Professor Colin Blakemore, a member of the commission, said last night that Category X was a move designed to 'flag up' concerns over drugs such as mephedrone.

He said: 'There is evidence on the streets that this drug is dangerous, so the Government ought to get on and do something about it.'

Commission chief executive Roger Howard said: 'The unstoppable emergence of synthetic drugs illustrates the need to scope out a new control framework that is better able to assess and reduce harm to individuals and society.

'Until we have a full assessment of the evidence, we are calling for "substances of potential danger" to be placed in an emergency holding category, Category X.'