The Trip Report 17/02

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: Methandrostenolone Sold as: Diazepam Location: Cardiff Advice: We usually don’t discuss mislabelled benzos here, because there’s not really much useful information we could give which isn’t covered in our standing warning up top. This one is a bit different, though — methandrostenolone, better known as Dianabol or Dbol is an anabolic steroid.

Let’s begin with the best case scenario. WEDINOS doesn’t accept samples of anabolic steroids, so hopefully the service user noticed the volume of benzos they receive and simply labelled their Dbol as diazepam so that they would actually test it. While we don’t approve of misleading WEDINOS, as it messes with the data they report, this is certainly preferable to the alternative.

If that’s not the case, the user’s likely to have some very strange symptoms indeed. Dbol is a fairly potent steroid, but like any such substance would need to be dosed pretty consistently over the course of a cycle to have the intended effect, and paired with/followed by a cocktail of other drugs to counteract undesired effects ranging from severe water retention and sudden boobs to catastrophic changes to hormonal production and liver failure.

If this individual practices solid harm reduction by starting with a fragment of a pill, then not taking any more if they don’t experience the desired effect, odds are they’ll get away with no harm done. Unfortunately, we have no idea what kind of results you’d get if you reagent tested these — there’s no info available for Dbol and benzos tend not to react to common reagents anyway, so for the time being we have to rely on subjective metrics and services like WEDINOS, even if that sometimes means the odd fib. Source: https://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (ref: W012837) Methandrostenolone Info: http://www.drugwiki.net/drugs/Dianabol

Warning: High Dose — 231mg

Substance: MDMA Location: Tested in Zurich 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://bit.ly/39zt89A 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.