The Trip Report 02/03
Even if you know exactly what you’re taking, drug use is never safe — that said, it’s much safer when you do.
Through the work of organisations such as WEDINOS, The Loop, and SaferParty, we know a little more about the drugs in circulation. The report provided below is a summary of their findings over the last week. This report is primarily UK-focused and couldn’t possibly cover everything, so if you find something I’ve missed please contact me and we’ll get it updated.
The absence of a product from this list doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be there; you might have something more dangerous than anything listed, but it just hasn’t been reported yet. A vital tool for any drug user is a testkit, which allows you to identify roughly what is actually in your stash. You can find them here and if you need any help interpreting your results, testdrugs.info provides a web/android app for identifying a wide range of substances.
Final note: This report does not constitute medical advice. Some harm-reduction tips are offered for those who have already taken the compound, but if in doubt seek medical attention.
Standing Warning: Mislabelled Benzos
Dozens of samples from across the UK have been shown to be mis-sold, primarily a glut of etizolam being presented as diazepam and alprazolam. For the time being, it is advised to mistrust anything that didn’t come from the literal pharmacist because these samples have been pressed into convincing pills, even sold in blister packs, and reagent testing between these substances is very difficult. These “street blues” have been implicated in deaths across the country, and are not to be taken lightly.
Standing Warning: “Cannabis e-liquids”
Over the last few months, over a dozen reports have come in of substances sold as cannabis vape liquid which contain no cannabis whatsoever, and instead contain synthetic cannabinoids such as 4F-MDMB-BINACA. Does that name sound intimidating? Good. It’s a bizarre substance which started to appear a few months ago and about which we still know basically nothing. All we can do is compare it to previous “noids”, which have caused thousands of seizures, heart attacks and deaths. While cannabis e-liquids are widely enjoyed in more sensible countries, the UK is not among those countries. Instead, the UK is subject to an unregulated criminal market where the low price, undetectability and ease of production for e-liquids made of concoctions like 5F-MDMB-PINACA render them a no-brainer for unscrupulous dealers. Did you notice that that’s a completely different substance to the one mentioned up top, by the way? There are hundreds, all with inscrutable names like that. It’s exhausting.
Warning: Mislabelled Substance
Substance: 3-MMC
Sold as: 4-MMC (mephedrone)
Location: Hereford, Zurich and Bern
Advice: This appears to be another in a growing trend of just whatever cathinone being passed off as mephedrone by sketchy online RC dealers. Fortunately, this substitute is one of the safer options, as 3-MMC is dosed a good deal higher than mephedrone — you’ll be less likely to suddenly find yourself in a difficult situation with your regular dose than if it had been substituted with something stronger.
Fortunately the effects and toxicity are similar enough (as far as we know) that so long as you’re careful with finding the right dose, you can probably get away with using such a substitution and still have a good time. If you have access to testing reagents that’s even better: 4-MMC will cause Marquis reagent to fizz clear, while 3-MMC will have no effect at all.
Sources: https://wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Ref: W013042), https://bit.ly/3aiIsHZ and https://bit.ly/2Tzp6aT
3-MMC Info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/3-MMC
Warning: Ludicrous Dose of a Mislabelled Substance
Substance: DOC
Sold as: LSD
Location: Tested in Geneva
Advice: Substituting LSD for DOC is a tricky thing at best — psychedelics are complicated substances and people have extraordinarily specific relationships with each one, so you can’t swap just things around like 3-MMC and 4-MMC above. That problem is rendered orders of magnitude worse by messing up when it comes to dose, and whichever clown dosed these has some very bad trips to answer for.
The tab that SaferParty received had a dose of 14.2mg of DOC on it, about 5 times the average dose.
Given that doses can vary so much from tab to tab, and even across different regions of the same tab, there’s no way you could simply cut this mammoth sample up and expect to have a normal time. You could, however, achieve some consistency with volumetric dosing: DOC is stable in water, so if you drop this tab in a bottle and fill with a known quantity of water you can divide this 14mg into manageable, consistent doses.
100ml, for example, would give you a concentration of 1.4mg per 10ml — a shot (25ml) of this liquid would therefore be a strong-ish, but much more sensible dose of 3.5mg. If you combine volumetric dosing with a start-low-go-slow approach, this single tab could provide a good trip for a whole group of people, rather than a mind-shredding nightmare for the poor fool that just necks the tab.
Source: https://bit.ly/2Ib5X9R
DOC Info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/DOC
Warning: Mislabelled Substance
Substance: Cocaine
Sold as: Ketamine
Location: London
Advice: This seems like a simple case of mixed up baggies. The visual difference between ketamine and cocaine can be subtle and shouldn’t be relied upon. A small tester dose should quickly reveal the difference between the two: cocaine has a numbing effect where it makes contact with the nasal membrane or gum, whereas ketamine will make the entire sinus taste terrible. Risks are relatively low with this substitution, as cocaine is dosed significantly higher than ket, but heavy ketamine users may start higher and experience some difficulties.
Reagent testing for this substitution can be pretty tough, but if you happen to have Simon’s reagent you can distinguish between them: cocaine will produce a faint blue, whereas ket produces orange/pink/yellowy colours.
Source: https://wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Ref: W013051)
Cocaine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Cocaine
Warning: Mislabelled Substance
Substance: Ketamine, MDMA, Paracetamol and Trazodone
Sold as: Cocaine blended with opium
Location: Harlow
Advice: What? No. What? Ok, we’re not a judgmental lot here at The Trip Report, but come on now. First warning sign: it’s pink. Cocaine is famously not pink, opium is less famous but also obviously not pink. Secondly, even if this was cocaine mixed with opium, you don’t snort opium. Thirdly, even if you could, you’d be buying an incredibly dangerous mix of drugs, pre-mixed by a stranger. However, the person who submitted this sample still bought it and took it, reporting effects that appear to be consistent with an unexpected k-hole.
We can’t offer any meaningful harm reduction advice on this, to tell you the truth. Based on the reported effects we can assume the sample to be mostly ketamine, but that’s little more than an educated guess. We don’t know exactly what the ratios are here, or if they’ll vary from sample to sample, and that makes it pretty much impossible to offer any meaningful advice around safer consumption. Because the intention is already to buy a cocktail of different drugs, reagent testing wouldn’t differentiate the intended purchase from the substitution.
Our only advice here is more of a consumer protection one — be an informed buyer. Don’t buy pre-mixed drugs, and know what you want well enough to know that this pinkass powder is clearly not cocaine and/or opium.
Source: https://wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Ref: W013094)
Ketamine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Ketamine
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
Paracetamol info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol
Trazodone info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trazodone
Warning: Mislabelled Substance
Substance: MDMA, ketamine, cocaine, PMMA, Benzoylecgonine and 3 unknown substances
Sold as: LSD
Location: Tested in Vienna
Advice: Well, this has been quite the week for strange cocktails. This specific sample, however, looks more like the result of a regular tab kept in a thoroughly filthy baggy or worse, just dumped in somebody’s wallet.
The LSD on the tab, if it ever had any, has likely long degraded through the abuse it appears to have received. LSD is an extraordinarily fragile substance, and will quickly degrade in the presence of heat/light or just over time. The other substances present were likely accrued from the container, present only in trace amounts (CheckIt doesn’t quantify the doses).
PMMA was, for some time, a common adulterant in MDMA and benzoylecgonine is often spotted in cocaine as it degrades, so it looks like this tab has been bouncing around in containers used for adulterated MD, ket and cocaine which has been similarly mistreated.
In terms of harm reduction, however, there’s not much to be said here. We would be surprised if any of the substances present in the sample are in high-enough doses to have any effect at all. As far as harm reduction is concerned, you’re just eating a little paper square.
Source: https://checkit.wien/media/checkit_Warnungen_0220.pdf
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
Ketamine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Ketamine
Cocaine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Cocaine
PMMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/PMMA
Benzoylecgonine info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzoylecgonine
Warning: High Dose — 197–207mg
Substance: MDMA
Location: Tested in Vienna
Advice: These pills are generally intended to contain more than one dose and as such, most come with a breakline. If you spot a pill on The Trip report, odds are you’ll want to snap it and have a half or even less to have the best experience.
Once you’re already up, you’ll want to avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.
Source: https://checkit.wien/media/checkit_Warnungen_0220.pdf
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
Warning: High dose — 232mg
Substance: MDMA
Location: Tested in Vienna
Advice: These pills are generally intended to contain more than one dose and as such, most come with a breakline. If you spot a pill on The Trip report, odds are you’ll want to snap it and have a half or even less to have the best experience.
Once you’re already up, you’ll want to avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.
Source: https://checkit.wien/media/checkit_Warnungen_0220.pdf
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
Warning: High dose — 238–249mg
Substance: MDMA
Location: Tested in Vienna
Advice: These pills are generally intended to contain more than one dose and as such, most come with a breakline. If you spot a pill on The Trip report, odds are you’ll want to snap it and have a half or even less to have the best experience.
Once you’re already up, you’ll want to avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.
Source: https://checkit.wien/media/checkit_Warnungen_0220.pdf
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
Warning: Ludicrously high dose — 318mg
Substance: MDMA
Location: Tested in Vienna
Advice: These pills are generally intended to contain more than one dose and as such, most come with a breakline. If you spot a pill on The Trip report, odds are you’ll want to snap it and have a half or even less to have the best experience.
Once you’re already up, you’ll want to avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.
Source: https://checkit.wien/media/checkit_Warnungen_0220.pdf
MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA
If you have found The Trip Report useful and would like to see more from us, please consider supporting us with a small donation via Ko-fi, or becoming a regular supporter by joining our Patreon page.
