Channel 4 orders more Drugs

The UK’s Channel 4 has commissioned a second season of its controversial factual show Drugs Live, this time replacing a Ecstasy trial with a look into cannabis use.

The original Drugs Live saw a group of people take ecstasy live on television and describe the effects as they kicked in and season two will do the same with volunteers bind-testing high strength cannabis known as ‘skunk’, cannabis resin and a placebo.

Drugs Live: Cannabis will explore effects of the brain, the associated risks and potential medical uses, and also look at the history of the drug.

Shed Media-owned Renegade Pictures is again attached to the 1x90mins shows, with Renegade founder Alan Hayling executive producing. It will broadcast next year on an unspecified date.

The original was criticised in the UK press as a publicity stunt but psychopharmacologist Professor Val Curran, who will lead the trial with Professor David Nutt, said: Channel 4’s Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial was watched by around two million young people in the UK last year and many more across the internet. My hope is that this new programme will scientifically inform those who use, have used or are thinking of using this drug about the effects of different types of cannabis.”

Channel 4 has also commissioned Guy Martin: Speed (WT), which will see Martin, a motorbike racer, creating challenges to investigate the science of speed. The four-part series is from All3Media-owned North One Television.