The Drug Revolution That No One Can Stop

Designing your own narcotics online isn’t just easy—it can be legal too. How do we know? We did it.

AT MIDDAY ON A THURSDAY this past April, a radio call crackled through from an ambulance team to the emergency department of Calvary Hospital in Canberra, Australia.

Dr. David Caldicott, who was leading the shift as admitting officer, immediately noticed a tense quality in the ambulance driver’s voice. His tone was higher-pitched than normal, and his words came fast and clipped. Two young men had been found unconscious in the grounds of the local university, the ambulance driver said. They would both require immediate tracheal intubation. That was it: the line closed. No further information. The ambulance raced through the city traffic towards the hospital, sirens wailing.

“Emergency medicine is like flying a plane,” says Caldicott. “Hours of mundanity punctuated by moments of sheer terror. If you’re worth your salt, you’re not scared, though. Just focused.”

The men arrived, deeply unconscious and in need of immediate intensive care. Neither patient could breathe properly without assistance, and the ER teams scrambled to stabilize them by splinting open their airways and ventilating their lungs with breathing tubes.