Who's on what?

A few months ago, Bond Street was the scene of a glittering fashion party. It was held at the Miu Miu shop to celebrate the arrival of the new collection, and le tout Londres was invited. Mojitos and champagne were circulated by elegant waiters, passers-by outside enviously eyeballed the black-clad revellers.

And three male guests smirked, winked at one another, and waited for the little blue diamond-shaped pills they'd swallowed to take effect. 'They had all taken Viagra,' says a fashion editor who was hanging out with the group, 'and they were boasting about it to everyone and asking each other whether it was working yet. They certainly didn't make any effort to keep it a secret.

The idea was that they were all going to go off clubbing afterwards, and taking Viagra beforehand was a way of making them feel more confident and sexy. A year ago, it would have been cocaine, but popping a pill is a bit more discreet, isn't it?'

Indeed it is. Ever since Sadie Frost's toddler daughter allegedly picked up an ecstasy tablet from the floor of private members' club Soho House last year, there's been something of an informal clampdown on illegal drugs, and particularly on the cocaine that runs like a white river through a certain section of London society. Some clubs have installed sloping surfaces in their bathrooms to prevent snorting, or appointed a member of staff to supervise the loos at all times.

So, instead, society revellers have started investigating their bathroom cabinets in pursuit of a legal high. With the result that, in some circles at least, London is becoming a latter-day Valley of the Dolls.

It's a trend that started, as such trends do, in America, where stars of the order of Courtney Love and Melanie Griffith have admitted addiction to the prescription painkiller Vicodin (not legally available here, though you can get it over the net). Eminem was so enamoured of the drug that he got himself a pill tattoo on his biceps and adorned his debut CD, The Slim Shady LP, with a Vicodin tablet.

But it's not just Vicodin: Noelle Bush, the daughter of Jeb and niece of the President, was arrested last year for attempting to buy the tranquilliser Xanax with a false prescription. Why? Perhaps the actress and writer Maria McErlane has the answer. She recently got toothache during a trip to New York. 'I got a doctor to come to the hotel, and he dished out a complete menu: Vicodin, Percocet and Ativan. I could have given birth to a rugby team and not noticed. It was fabulous. I spent the week in a sort of daze. It was a blur, but a nice blur.'

Hardly surprising, then, that such prescription drugs are now circulating on the London party scene. Drug dealers who were accustomed to make their living from marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy are now offering an enhanced service and selling Xanax, the amphetamine Ritalin (used for treating children with attention deficit disorder) for snorting or injecting, and the socalled 'date rape' drug Rohypnol for up to £10 a pill. 'They're just the thing after you've been out clubbing and taking coke,' explains one clubgoer. 'If you take a roofie or a temazzie [Temazepam, another benzodiazepine] it means that you sleep like a dream and you're fit for work the next day. Otherwise, you'd just lie there twitching.'

Meanwhile, Viagra, intended for the use of men with erectile dysfunction, is seen on the party circuit as a unisex party drug, mixed with ecstasy and cocaine 'for a real head-mashing experience,' says one user, as well as to counter the erection-dampening effects of the ecstasy.

Sarah, 28, a television producer, was recently stuck for a 30th birthday present for her boyfriend's brother, until she hit on the idea of giving him Viagra. 'I put the tablets in one of those turquoise Tiffany jewel boxes,' she says proudly, 'because the pills are almost the same sky blue colour.'

The recipient was, she admits, 'a bit freaked out' at first, but soon put them to good use, handing them out at his birthday party to the girls he found most attractive. 'He said he thought it would be too dangerous to take them himself,' Sarah explains.

Benzodiazepines are equally popular among the partying set for inducing a feeling of relaxed wellbeing. A friend recently 'won' four diazepam tablets (what used to be called Valium) in a postdinner party quiz. 'I went to a lovely dinner party last month,' confides Rob, a thirty-something luxury-goods PR, at a restaurant launch. 'When the hostess brought out the coffee, champagne and chocolates, there was a little saucer of pills on the tray beside them. She said: "Anyone want a Valium?" So we all had one.'

Rob describes the experience as 'a revelation'. 'I'd never taken diazepam before and, I must say, it was fantastic. It made me feel very relaxed and touchy-feely - it was a very sensual experience. Almost the best thing about it was that the next morning, I didn't feel any of the guilt or embarrassment that I normally do if I've taken something I shouldn't. In fact, I wondered if I'd dreamt it all.'

He's now planning to buy himself his own stash. It won't be difficult: an organised older gentleman of my acquaintance has two dealers on speed-dial, one for the Class As, and a renegade hospital porter who provides him with as many prescription drugs as he can consume. Otherwise, it's dangerously easy to 'score' off the net. Type in Viagra and a plethora of websites appear, promising online prescriptions, complete discretion and fast delivery for around £20 per tablet. Or you can simply try your doctor. 'A lot of private doctors are prescribing drugs very easily,' says Alice, 35, a singer. 'You just go along and say you fell down the stairs and your back hurts, and they'll give you a prescription. Then you can keep going back for repeats.'

Common among this self-medicating fraternity is a feeling that such drugs are inherently safer and less sleazy than taking cocaine or heroin. 'All the showbiz types I know are on prescription drugs - the sort of thirty-something people who go to bars and restaurants in Mayfair,' says Alice. 'Coke is so cheap now and it is cut with all sorts of horrible things, so it's much safer to stick to what the doctor gives you. If you're starting to get stressed, you just pop a pill and nobody's any the wiser.'

And, of course, there's much less likely to be a problem if your bag is searched. It is a criminal offence to possess benzodiazepines, including Valium, Librium and Mogadon, without a prescription. 'But in practice, you'd do bog all about it,' says a police officer, 'unless the person was carrying boxes of the stuff and clearly had intent to supply. And I've never heard of anyone being arrested for having Viagra. What the police are looking for is crack and heroin - headline drugs.'

And so the artificially enhanced party goes on and along with the martinis, a cocktail of pretty red, blue, pink and yellow pills is swallowed to ensure the partygoers can work, rest and play. But the sanitised image of prescription pillpopping can be very far from the reality. For one thing, these drugs can be extremely dangerous. If too many are taken, or they are washed down with alcohol (as they usually are by recreational users) they can lead to death from suffocation.

For another, they can be just as addictive as heroin, according to Dr Robert Lefever, managing director of the Promis Recovery clinics. 'As Ian Huntley showed recently, you can kill yourself with antidepressants if you take enough. These drugs are dangerous. They are slow to act and slow to withdraw from the body. You try coming off Prozac - you get cold turkey, the same as coming off heroin.'

It is estimated that 1.2 million Britons are addicted to benzodiazepines. Between 1990 and 1996, there were 1,810 recorded deaths in the UK caused by benzodiazepines: in each of those years, deaths due to benzodiazepine exceeded those due to either Class A or Class B drugs. And while the manufacturers themselves state that benzodiazepines should be prescribed for no more than four weeks, the drugs are routinely given on repeat prescription for years.

But this confidence may be misplaced. Prescription drugs can be extremely addictive and may be harder to give up than illegal drugs - in part, for the simple reason that the addicts themselves don't realise that they have a problem. 'Getting people off prescription drugs is the most difficult treatment we do,' says Promis treatment director Adrian Lee. 'They're so much more dangerous than illegal drugs because they are manufactured to hit the sweet spot. You can come off heroin in 24 hours, but it can take 24 weeks to come off Valium. And long-term users can't just stop suddenly because it could have fatal results.'

Barry Haslam, who runs a charity for benzodiazepine addicts, Beat the Benzos, has first-hand knowledge of the difficulty of coming off the drugs. He had just taken his final accountancy exams when he had a breakdown and was prescribed tranquillisers by his GP. Ten years on, he was still taking the tablets: up to 24 a day, including Librium, Ativan and amitriptyline. 'I have no memory of that decade,' he says simply. 'It was like being in a coma. When I stopped taking the pills, I realised that my little girls had grown up. I last remembered them aged six and seven, and they were now 16 and 17. The time in between was a blank.'

His withdrawal, which he supervised himself, took over a year and caused vomiting, sweating, terrible nightmares and incontinence. Seventeen years on, he is still suffering: his brain has been damaged and he has to take a heroin-based drug to control the pain in his legs.

Understandably, he takes an uncompromising view of the amateur Dr Feelgoods of the party scene. 'Anyone who takes prescription drugs for fun is playing with a loaded revolver,' he says. But it seems like they're having too much fun playing Russian roulette to listen to such advice.

Back at the swish restaurant launch, Rob is confiding his new plan to buy his own stash of benzodiazepines off the internet. 'I'm only going to take them on Saturday nights,' he insists. 'But it seems silly not to do it. I mean, this isn't like messing around with illegal drugs, is it?' And while he and others like him take that view, society will continue to dance to the tune of Mother's Little Helper.

For further information on addiction, contact Promis on 0800 374 318 or Beat the Benzos on 01457 876 355