Myth: You Can’t Test for Fentanyl in Street Drugs

Yes, you can and should test your drugs for fentanyl! With the rise of fentanyl-cut drugs on the black market, testing your substances is more important than ever. Fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid knowingly fatal at low quantities, is being used recklessly as an adulterant in heroin, and now more recently in cocaine, across the United States and Canada. Understandably, some people may be under the impression that there is no way to test for fentanyl as it is not detectable with current drug checking reagents, the most common form of drug checking available to the public. And up until pretty recently,...

December 18, 2017Read more...

LSD is LSD

Needlepoint, Lavender, White Fluff. All different labels for one substance, and one substance only: LSD. It is not correct to say that there are different ‘types’ of LSD. LSD is LSD. So why, then, are there different and distinct effects, durations, and experiences between the various street names or labels for LSD, or even between different sources? The most likely answer: purity. The last step in making LSD, according to this chemist on Reddit, is the separation of the inactive isomers and impurities from the active isomer (d-iso-lysergic acid diethylamide). Only roughly 30% of the the crude product is LSD, “while the...

December 11, 2017Read more...

Bath Salts Will Not Turn You Into a Cannibal

On May 26, 2012, Rudy Eugene, a 31-year-old car wash employee, violently attacked Ronald Poppo, a 65-year-old houseless man he encountered on Miami's McArthur Causeway. Eugene gnawed off most of his victim's face in an 18-minute assault that ended after he was shot by a police officer. Based on no evidence, and on one police officer's speculation alone, news outlets all over the world caught wind of the bizarre incident, attributing Eugene's savage violence to the use of "bath salts," -- a term used to describe synthetic cathinones like mephedrone (4-MMC), alpha-PVP, and MDPV. The media dubbed Eugene the “Causeway...

December 4, 2017Read more...

Drinking Alcohol: A Socially Acceptable Way to Consume Drugs

Remember when we debunked the myth that caffeine was indeed a drug? Well, it’s time now to do the same for alcohol. Today, we bring to you #MythBusterMonday in all its might to dismantle the dichotomy between “drugs and alcohol.” As DanceSafe’s Kristin Karas is always so apt to point out, it should be more accurately stated as  “alcohol and other drugs.”    Alcohol, also known by its chemical name ethanol, is a psychoactive drug that is the active ingredient in beverages like beer, wine, and distilled spirits. It is one of the oldest and most common recreational substances, as some...

November 20, 2017Read more...

Myth: Strychnine is Commonly Found in LSD

For today’s #MythBusterMonday, we decided to take it back, old school style, to address the 1990’s myth that strychnine is commonly found in LSD. Although perhaps bygone, this tall tale deserves to be put to rest for good. Strychnine is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide and that is known as a popular poison. It is found in the the seeds of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree, which contains more strychnine than any other commercial alkaloid. In the 1990’s, it was believed that strychnine was commonly found in LSD either because it was needed to bond LSD...

November 13, 2017Read more...

Shatter is Potent but it is Not Pure

Dabs: shatter, wax, budder, live resin, sugar, sauce, moonrocks, full melt. These are all varying terms for different types of cannabis concentrates that are available in today’s legal (and, let’s be honest, illegal) cannabis market--one that is technologically advanced and highly concentrated, with advents of an impressively long list of new ways to consume cannabis -- most notably, dabbing. Concentrates are produced when the cannabinoids of the cannabis plant (like THC and CBD) are extracted from flowers of the plant using a solvent like butane or CO2, or without a solvent by being pressed with heat or using an ice...

November 6, 2017Read more...

A Halloween Ecstasy Haunting: Do Strangers Give Out Drugs as Candy?

In the spirit of Halloween, DanceSafe puts to rest the scary rumor that strangers hand out ecstasy pills designed to look like candy to children trick-or-treating on the spookiest day of the year. According to Snopes: The “ecstasy in Halloween candy” warning appeared to be a variant of age-old rumors about poison (and other dangerous substances) being randomly handed out to children in trick-or-treat loot, a persistent but largely baseless fear that’s dogged Halloween celebrations for decades. Despite long-held beliefs that Halloween candy tampering is both commonplace and regularly results in harm to children, reports of actual attempts to do so...

October 30, 2017Read more...

Nice People Use Drugs

Nice people use drugs. Troubled people use drugs, professionals use drugs. Parents, teenagers, and government officials use drugs. Students use drugs, and professors use drugs. If you drink a cup of coffee in the morning, or unwind after work with a glass of wine or a craft beer, you use drugs. If you take Advil for pain, or use Adderall to concentrate, or Xanax to help with anxiety, you are using drugs. As history will tell it, humans have been using substances to alter their brain chemistry since the beginning of time. So why are some people who choose to...

October 23, 2017Read more...

Myth: Everyone is Treated Equally Under Current Drug Laws

This week, over 1,500 people representing over 80 countries will gather in Atlanta at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), where attendees will participate in panels, talks, and other events centered around the failed Drug War (including us). In the wake of this global gathering for drug policy reform, today’s #MythBusterMonday debunks the sentiment that “everyone is treated equally under current drug laws.” On the contrary, America’s drug laws have and continue to systematically target communities of color, causing a grossly disproportionate impact on BIPOC Americans. One needs only to look at America’s crack...

October 9, 2017Read more...

Caffeine = Drug

Let’s get it straight: Caffeine is most certainly a drug. In fact, it is the world’s most consumed psychoactive drug, meaning that it changes brain function and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness or behavior. Caffeine is legal and unregulated in nearly all parts of the world. The definition of "drug," in the most common sense of the word, is: “a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body.” According to Erowid, caffeine is an alkaloid and acts as a stimulant of the central nervous system, cardiac (heart) muscle, and...

September 25, 2017Read more...