What even is this article? Ads in place of line breaks, bizarrely inflammatory tone that seemingly refuses to link out to any sources, and a story of drug induced psychosis treated as if it were the only expected result.

Edit: just to tack on, the drug in question appears to be a stimulant derived from a shrub.. but evidently up to 150 'chinese' substances are also banned. None of this substantiated. It reads more like a creative writing prompt written immediately after waking from a fever dream. This reads like it should be titled FWD:RE:RE:RE:ARE YOUR KIDS SAFE???

This article is low quality IMHO. But if we stipulate that it's correct/fair/etc, does anybody stop and ask themselves why this happens? Could it be that we have made it utterly impossible for new recreational drugs to be created legally by scrupulous (and accountable!) people/organizations, and we've banned the known and in many cases mostly safe alternatives, thus forcing people who want to feel different into dark corners? And before we demonize people for wanting to feel different, consider that drugs (especially alcohol) has been as much a part of human history/evolution as anything else has.

Articles like this feel like plants from the incarceration industry, with the aim of delaying current drug decriminalization trends.

Wasn't this pretty much the stuff that John McAffe claimed to have made a more potent version of?

Pretty low information article. I found it a lot more interesting to read the erowid trip reports on it [1].

> As of 2019, the drug had caused several deaths across Ohio and Utah, and 1 percent of American teens admitted they had tried it.

No idea where this statistic comes from but it's obviously ridiculous at it's face. 1% of American teens will answer they're moon creatures attending high school in disguise. [2]

[1] https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_945PVP.shtml [2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...