Coroner warns of 'extreme dangers' of meow-meow after death of Bonymaen rugby player Ross Alexander Jones

A CORONER has warned of the "extreme dangers" of the drug meow meow after a young rugby player was found dead in a car park in the early hours of the morning.

Ross Alexander Jones had snorted the drug with friends in the hours before his death.

His body was found in a car park next to the Bonymaen Inn, Bonymaen, at 5.20am, with an early morning delivery man raising the alarm.

An inquest into the 21-year-old's death heard that the effects on the body of mephedrone — also know as meow meow — were not well understood, and that experts were playing "catch-up" with the labs which were producing such new chemical compounds.

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Swansea coroner Philip Rodgers said: "The effects of this drug are unpredictable — it therefore poses an extreme danger.

"We do not know if people have a tolerance to it with repeated use — all the drugs of abuse are clearly dangerous in various quantities, but mephedrone is particularly dangerous because so little is known about it, and because of the idiosyncratic effects it can have on people."

The inquest heard that Bonymaen RFC player Mr Jones, from Caerphilly Avenue, had spent the four days prior to his death partying with friends and taking meow meow, which they had all chipped in to buy.

He left a friend's house in Bonymaen Road around 3.15am on February 8, and his body was discovered some two hours later.

The inquest heard that the cause of death was mephedrone toxicity.

Pathologist Andrew Davison said that, taking an educated guess, the former Makro and Swansea Council employee had suffered a "sudden cardiac event as a result of mephedrone in the blood".

He added: "Most professionals are pretty clear that it does cause fatalities."

The coroner recorded a finding of death by misadventure.

He added: "I hope that reports of these sad facts will alert people to the dangers of this particular drug."