In 2010, unconfirmed reports speculated about the role mephedrone has played in the deaths of several young people in the UK. By July 2010, mephedrone had been alleged to be involved in 52 fatalities in the UK, but detected in only 38 of these cases. Of the nine that coroners had finished investigating, two were caused directly by mephedrone. The first death reported to be caused by mephedrone use was that of 46-year-old, John Sterling Smith, who had underlying health problems and repeatedly injected the drug. A report in Forensic Science International in August 2010 stated mephedrone intoxication has been recorded as the cause of death in two cases in Scotland. Post mortem samples showed the concentration of mephedrone in their blood was 22 mg/l in one case and 3.3 mg/l in the other. The death of a teenager in the UK in November 2009 was widely reported as being caused by mephedrone, but a report by the coroner concluded she had died from natural causes. In March 2010, the deaths of two teenagers in Scunthorpe were widely reported by the media to be caused by mephedrone. Toxicology reports showed the teenagers had not taken any mephedrone and had died as a result of consuming alcohol and the heroin substitute methadone. According to Fiona Measham, a criminologist who is a member of the ACMD, the reporting of the unconfirmed deaths by newspapers followed 'the usual cycle of exaggeration, distortion, inaccuracy and sensationalism'' associated with the reporting of recreational drug use. Mephedrone is a white substance. It is sold most commonly as crystals or a powder, but also in the form of capsules or pills. It can have a distinctive odour, reported to range from a synthetic fishy smell to the smell of vanilla and bleach, stale urine, or electric circuit boards. Mephedrone is one of hundreds of designer drugs or legal highs that have been reported in recent years, including artificial chemicals such as synthetic cannabis and semisynthetic substances such as methylhexaneamine. These drugs are primarily developed to avoid being controlled by laws against illegal drugs, thus giving them the label of designer drugs. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the synthesis of mephedrone was first reported in 1929 by Saem de Burnaga Sanchez in the Bulletin de la Societe Chimique de France, under the name 'toluyl-alpha-monomethylaminoethylcetone',:17 but the compound remained an obscure product of academia until 2003, when it was 're-discovered' and publicised by an underground chemist on The Hive website, working under the pseudonym 'Kinetic'. Mephedrone, also known as 4-methylmethcathinone (4-MMC), or 4-methylephedrone, is a synthetic stimulant drug of the amphetamine and cathinone classes. Slang names include meph, drone, MCAT, meow meow, and bubble. It is reportedly manufactured in China and is chemically similar to the cathinone compounds found in the khat plant of eastern Africa. It comes in the form of tablets or a powder, which users can swallow, snort or inject, producing similar effects to MDMA, amphetamines, and cocaine.