Has the New Cocaine Arrived?
playboy.substack.com
playboy.substack.com
I wonder if this was written by someone who recently discovered 3-MMC and is in the honeymoon phase where they think their use is only positive and the good times will never end. Quotes like this are not something you’ll hear from experienced users of this type of drug:
> “When you take it, you don’t feel ‘high,’ ” he explained. “You just feel better, with a little bit of pep in your step. It’s a functional tool, and it’s also very stealth. The outside world can’t really tell that you’re on drugs.”
There’s a subreddit dedicated to discussions of these research chemicals. It’s a strange place because it’s filled with stories that start out like this, which attract dozens of comments from more experienced users trying to warn the new user that those feelings aren’t going to last and that their altered state isn’t as covert as they believe. There are also a lot of posts from people desperate for advice about how to recover after hitting rock bottom from months of using these drugs, having discovered that they could not, in fact, take it forever like they original thought.
I don’t know what this article is, but if it made you think 3-MMC is a secret to partying hard and being productive forever without any notable downsides (other than the oh by the way it’s a little addictive aside) then you should know that this is what all of the honeymoon phase stories look like with every drug addiction stories.
* It actually tends to smell like a pungent cross between freshly manufactured PCBs and the greasy kitchen ventilator outlet of a fried food takeaway.
What an odd way of saying that it's addictive.
However, the human brain has finite known chemistry (if I recall it is under 14 types of possible highs excluding hallucinogens), and note many malformed neurotransmitters from Erythroxylum coca can make people sociopathic or psychotic during the 10 month average withdrawal period.
The schizophrenic symptoms a highly poisonous Datura stramonium family causes has almost no one lining up to ever experience a nightmare trip rolling in their own excrement for 10 days. However, some native tribes still guide young folk through the experience as a rite of passage ceremony.
Addiction is a nuisance by comparison, but some experiences go well beyond synthetic catharsis or a chemical lobotomy. Most drugs are legal in my country now, but it hasn't made people healthier or more responsible.
Most of these plants grow naturally in many areas, and there are worse things around... which is why one should always garden with gloves on, and never burn unknown greenery. =3
Bad false equivalence.
Drugs, sex, food, gambling. All the same.
“I tell you what this crack is really moreish”
Compulsive redosing refers to a short-term addictive quality. It feels good so you take more.
Addictive can mean a lot of things. Opiates have agonizing, long-lasting withdrawal effects that can trigger redosing over the course of months or years. That's also a meaning of "addictive" but one that is intentionally not included by the author's wording.
All good, let people do what they want to do, but no downsides at all, even for the other drugs mentioned?
Cocaine's problem is "the irritation", Ecstasy has too much of a "hard comedown"? And all of them are addictive, but that's just a "potentially fatal flaw"?
Interesting parallel universe you got there.
Oh and:
> Perhaps it will turn out to be like MDMA, which saw its recreational market explode after being banned. So far, 3-MMC’s supply chains, which trace back to industrial labs in China and India, have held steady. With its irresistible mix of pleasure and productivity, 3-MMC might just be the drug for our time.
Illegality? Details, details...
Especially if you're a responsible adult, wouldn't you want to be informed about the downsides?
They’re all responsible adults until something goes wrong and they do something horrible.
Says who?
This article is not that at all.
I don't think anyone trying out hard drugs for the first time thinks that they will be addicted forever. In fact they think: "trying it once couldn't hurt".
I think the number of people who are able to set boundaries with regards to addictive substances is in the minority, which is why I'm in favor of regulation for these.
That being said, I think that providing clean equipment and environments for addicts is better than putting them in jail. Unfortunately though, many end up suffering from mental illness and become a danger.
>> In an era obsessed with both hedonism and productivity...
This sounds like the exhausting root problem, and I don't want to participate in maxing either.
Or (and stick with me here) you might be normal.
Until then it seem to be pro-3MMC in how it's talked about which I think is dangerous. The history of it however is fascinating.
the problem is when something gives you physical dependence like heroin or heavy drinking where you cant just decide to quit because your body adapts to the drug and you will get sick without it, and i dont know if thats the case with 3-MMC.
That is by definition not what "outlier" means.
Caffeine is pretty safe. The withdrawals, for those of us who experience them, are safe if unpleasant.
There's prescription drugs that cause dependency but are widely prescribed. Gabapentin is a good example?
Alcohol is the drug that best fits the "grandfathered" idea, since it's for many folks not compatible with a healthy lifestyle and the withdrawals can be fatal. Alcohol is impossible to ban, though, because the precursors are in every grocery store on the planet and grow on trees
In this age of turning away from network media and embracing video podcasts, this seems like something some talk show host would offer—coffee? Water? Chatty drugs?
This sounds like Brave New World.
There’s a term for it: Delusions of sobriety.
> The outside world can’t really tell that you’re on drugs.
And if you believe that sentence, you’re already a junkie and the drug altered your psychology/character – or you’re being primed for becoming a consumer. As if khat or cocaine users aren’t noticeable as such.
Doesn’t this article read a bit like „it’s not really a drug“?
It’s hard to tell what’s even more despicable: making people perpetually high or contributing to Dr. Zee’s sales by promoting mental and physical deprivation as just another hobby. Look it feels warmer than X, smells better than Y. Now go have some „chem-sex“ with strangers getting your occasional STD. Totally normal
Okay then
Soviets/Russia came up with a whole bunch of abusive drugs to deal with cold and exhaustion (racetams, etc)
Sometimes I go read the WADA banned list just to see what people are messing with
(cathinones and derivatives already banned by WADA)
A lot of the stuff comes out of horse racing
Though I wonder if there is a risk of causing accidents. Feeling focused is not the same as being focused, especially if on drugs. The effect might be ok to get some slick sales presentation over or do some programming work, but that doesn't mean I'd like to be in a car driven by someone on that thing or in the proximity of their weapon.
The Nazis gave you speed as part of a standard kit. That's why the Blitzkrieg was done in one wave with no rotations.
The drawback is that those soldiers were all a health wreck after 4-5 years on that stuff.
Then I realised "they are all on drugs, that's why they're enjoying it".
If you are not into that vibe it is a lame experience. And, typically you need to enjoy their drugs to enjoy their vibe, including the music.
Funny thing is that for people that are into that vibe, your unfathomable boredom is unfathomably incomprehensible. "How are you not having fun?"
My experience was having a couple of drinks, refusing drugs, standing around while the repetitive beats annoyed me much. Then I either had a few nore drinks and fell asleep in some bench or quietly left to get on a bus to the comfort of my home.
Well, that killed it for me. Talking? Honestly?
Dear lord, no.
(Now I want to see half of silicon valley come to an illegal AI rave with racks of computer terminals telling them they're absolutely right)
Kinda sounds like a rationalizing egomaniac asshole.