What’s In My Baggie?

Be careful Burners. That Molly might be Bath Salts.

“Molly is the moonshine of today”. As the documentary shows, what people think they’re taking, may not be what they’re really consuming at all.

A recent Reddit thread discussed how a Burner thought she was taking a lazy 3 hits of LSD at once, but it turned out to be designer drug 2C-C-NBOMe – an invention of the late Burner/Bohemian Grover Sasha Shulgin. She flipped out big time, and had to be restrained to a stretcher and treated at the medical tent. According to Reddit, for some unexplained reason, Burning Man had a chromatograph mass spectrometer there, able to analyze on the spot what was in the drugs. This led to a medical paper being written for the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Case Report: A 24 yo female was found to be tachycardic, tachypneic and with agitated delirium after drinking wine, smoking marijuana and ingesting 3 blotter paper doses of what she thought was lysergic acid diethylamide. She thought she was being attacked by invisible assailants. She was transported from her campsite to an on-site field hospital by emergency medical personnel, where she was treated with intravenous normal saline and lorazepam with complete recovery within 10 hours. Leftover blotter paper samples were analyzed using Agilent Liquid Chromatograph-Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (LC1200-TOF/MS 6230). The primary compound detected was 2C-C-NBOMe, with a smaller amount of 2C-I-NBOMe also present…

just lying around in the Medical Tent?

Use of designer drugs is increasing, as evidenced by the well-documented rise of synthetic cannabinoids (herbal incense, spice, K2) and synthetic cathinones (bath salts) in Europe and the United States, the pervasiveness of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in pop culture, and the constant detection of novel compounds with high resolution mass spectrometry techniques. The 2C class of psychedelic phenethylamines was first synthesized by Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin in the 1970s and 1980s. They are 5HT2 receptor agonists with variable receptor activity. Although 2C-I and 2C-B are both 5HT2A receptor agonists, 2C-I also has a high affinity to 5HT2C). Sold as “research chemicals”…

image: Pinterest

A 24-year-old Caucasian female with no significant past medical history was screaming in her tent while camping at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA. She was agitated and confused, under the impression that she was being attacked. On initial evaluation, her HR was 140 bpm with RR 32 per minute. Her pupils were dilated to 5 mm and her skin was moist and hot to the touch. She was not oriented to person, place or time. Per her boyfriend, earlier that evening she drank wine and smoked marijuana. Thirty minutes prior to evaluation, she ingested 3 doses of “acid” on blotter paper. She had taken acid (lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD) many times in the past without adverse effect. After brief assessment, paramedics physically restrained her to a gurney and transported her via ambulance to the on-site field hospital. Overnight, she was treated with intravenous normal saline boluses and 2 mg intravenous lorazepam, making a full recovery within 10 hours. The following day, she had complete amnesia to the events that had transpired and was otherwise asymptomatic. Seven other people had ingested single doses from the same blotter paper that evening, but none had similar adverse effects. No one had taken more than one dose. All users had received the drug for free from one supplier. A leftover drug sample was obtained from the supplying party, who had obtained it directly from the producer and was under the impression that it was “25C,” telling the patient that the drug was not acid, but “like acid.”

The American Journal of Emergency Medicine Volume issue 2014 – The electric Kool-Aid NBOMe test

However hardcore you think you are, it’s never a good idea to triple-drop. Especially with something you’ve never done before. Triple the drugs doesn’t mean triple the fun. “But they said it was like acid, I’ve done acid before” – that’s not how drugs work. Maybe if they were decriminalized and regulated, all acid would be the same – but even then “this is like acid”, is not the same as “this new thing you’ve never tried is identical to something else you’ve done before”.

People are handing out free designer drugs at Burning Man, and Burners are getting greedy, and getting into trouble. Who wants to go to a party, and end up as a case study in a medical journal? Or beating off in the cop shop?

Although they say “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”, I think “know what you’re taking before you take three of it” is better. Safety trumps politeness. Dancesafe sell testing kits here.