Open secrets: how the government lost the drug war in cyberspace

Reason, Oct, 2004 by Michael Erard

Earlier examples of urban legends about drugs include the claim that you can smell methamphetamine on a user, that smoking peanut skins or green tea will cause a high, and that so-called "red rock opium" contains opiates, which people try to smoke with marijuana. Today anyone with an Internet connection can readily find debunkings of these and other stories intended to scare people away from drugs. According to various sites, "red rock opium" is a form of "dragon's blood incense," which is made from daemonorops draco resin. Another myth concerns the "Chewbacca" technique for manufacturing methamphetamine (so named because a person called "Chewbacca-Darth" is credited for it), which involves such a delicate preparation of two sensitive precursors that it would be difficult to pull off even in a professional laboratory.

The current editor of Microgram, Bob Klein, acknowledges that the government allowed drug myths to circulate. "A lot of information [passed among drug users] was flat-out bogus," he says." A huge amount of material circulating around the chemical underground," such as smoking dried banana peels or making amphetamine from chicken feed, "was just bullshit. And the government wasn't going to correct those misconceptions for obvious reasons."

Now a host of Web sites can nip misinformation before it circulates, creating what is in effect a real-time, worldwide peer review process.

For instance, on April 20 mystryman, the moderator of a message board at Bluelight, posted the warning that a drug called 5meo-dipt, known as "Foxy," was being sold as Ecstasy in Florida. The posting referred to a discussion thread at another site, beaniebaby.com, as well as a link to pages about 5meo-dipt at one of the most comprehensive sites for drug info, The Vaults of Erowid (www.erowid.org). Another topic on Bluelight was the availability of LSD around the United States, in Cincinnati, Toledo, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis. "It's totally possible that there Is acid in florida, but It's also possible that you won't find any" wrote toxiku. (All eccentricities of style and spelling from Internet posts are preserved throughout this article.)

As in pre-Internet days, drug users continue to share their experiences with each other, but when these discussions take place online they're available immediately to a wide audience that can respond quickly. On February 26, 2004, at pillreports.com, nine people from around the U.S. and Canada had posted reports on seven varieties of Ecstasy pills, describing them (sometimes with photos), rating them, and discussing their effects.

A poster known as OICU812 had this to say concerning a small, round, pink pill stamped with an envelope logo: "very strong pill I cant really give an accurate report to how strong one is cause i did 5 over the night, but man it was so intence and such a rush for at least 12 hours then the next few days were wacked out 4 sho. all in all they were bad to the bone to say the least." Another poster, Ongie975, complained about a pill stamped with a blue dolphin: "Definitely got ripped off and not too happy about it." Responded Smiley Xer: "Probably more speed than anything else. Bunk dolphins are going around. Be careful! ~peace." Doctorj added, "Dolphins do have an interesting rep. I stay away from them. Peace."