Open Secrets

How the government lost the drug war in cyberspace.

Michael Erard from the October 2004 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

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."

Bluelight's John Robinson says this sort of exchange illustrates the evolution within the drug culture of knowledge that ultimately helps to keep people safe. "We have always tried to walk the line between the oral culture and the world of academic science," he says. "The Internet allows us to have an open, anonymous environment where people are able to speak freely and share their experiences, but it also means that we can make the effort to support what is said with references."

Other similarly interactive sites serve as the memory of the drug culture. The largest, most extensive of these is Erowid, which covers a huge range of substances, from marijuana to absinthe to morning glory seeds to obscure research drugs such as 5-Meo-AMT. Founded in 1995, Erowid boasts more than 28,000 visitors a day and some 20,000 documents related to psychoactive substances, including plants, illicit synthetics, pharmaceuticals, and "smart drugs." The information includes basic facts, legal status, chemical makeup, trip reports, spiritual associations, and references to scientific articles (including some from Microgram).

Microgram's Bob Klein complains that "many things that would have been better left buried in obscurity -- like smoking bufo toad skins, sniffing concentrated cow pie fumes, allowing yourself to be stung by scorpions, smoking jimson weed or salvia divinorum, drinking cough syrups, mixing up concoctions of any of dozens of different kinds of drugs and pharmaceuticals, drinking ayahuasca tea, etc., etc., etc. -- have been brought to light by the Internet, and are therefore practiced." But contrary to what the anti-drug crowd warns, many of the posts on these sites hardly glamorize drug use. One writer to Erowid, for instance, describes a 5-Meo-AMT trip as "the worst decision I have ever made." After hours of paranoia, nausea, headache, and pounding heartbeat, he ended up examining his life and deciding "that the current lifestyle of subtance abuse must end. I have truly been scared sober....I am writing this urging people to stay away from this chemical. It is very similar to LSD at the beginning but toward the end all hell broke loose."

Some of the messages at Bluelight read like a Consumer Reports of illicit substances. Wrote Mihgzer on March 3, 2004: "There are some puple gel tabs in america, they taste funny, some people liked them, some people got sick and said they thought it was 5meoamt." But most postings do contain genuine warnings. Mystryman warned people about the appearance of purple pills containing Para-methoxy-amphetamine, or PMA, in Maryland and Pennsylvania. "Not much to say but, these chemicals can make you die low doses. PERIOD!!!!" Rejoined .dR spgeddi, "australian bluelighters are all too familiar with the dangers associated with this drug. one entry in the shrine is dedicated to a beautiful person who passed foolishly experiamenting with pma."

Many of the drug sites appear to be offered in the spirit of harm reduction. Says the welcoming message at shroomery.org: "This site was created to help stop the spread of dangerous misinformation related to magic mushrooms, so that people can make intelligent and informed decisions about what they put in their bodies." The Ecstasy reduction site dancesafe.org includes this disclaimer at the bottom of its home-page: "This website provides health and safety information only. We neither condemn nor condone the use of any drug. Rather, we recognize that recreational drug use is a permanent part of our society, and that there will always be people who use drugs, despite prohibition. The drug information we provide, therefore, is meant to assist users in making informed decisions about their use."

By comparison to the old chemical underground, the connections offered by the online version are vast. Shroomery.org alone provides 25 links to sites in Scotland, England, France, Brazil, Russia, and elsewhere on the use of psychedelic mushrooms. It also contains links to 38 marijuana sites, six Ecstasy sites, and 14 sites dealing with miscellaneous drugs such as the cough suppressant dextromethorphan.

The 2001 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center counted 52 Web sites providing information on the production, sale, or use of Ecstasy, GHB, or LSD. An update (which the NDIC promises but has not yet done) would undoubtedly turn up more. The pro-marijuana site yahooka.com boasts 5,947 links to sites that, among other things, promote drug policy reform, discuss cannabis culture, offer marijuana-related goods and services, and provide growing information. There are links to 1,203 sites in languages other than English, including one in Arabic and one in Latvian.

This plethora of information has altered the drug war in numerous ways, some of them predictable. Web sites that sold pipes and bongs were easy targets for Operation Pipe Dreams, the Department of Justice's 2003 crackdown on drug paraphernalia merchants, which netted 55 suspects and led to at least 56 indictments (including one that sent actor Tommy Chong to jail for nine months). For those trying to avoid that sort of trouble, the Internet has been a source of advice on how to escape attention and deal with authorities. The experts at Erowid, for instance, answer questions about what substances show up on drug tests, including techniques for beating the tests, as do the message boards at urineluck.com, owned by Spectrum Labs, a Cincinnati-based company that makes detoxification products to beat drug tests.

The drug war in cyberspace also has led to goofy attempts at hipness, such as the government's aforementioned Freevibe (freevibe.com). The site, which promises the "lowdown" on marijuana and other drugs, is mainly an advertisement for other anti-drug efforts, with a few interactive features, such as a message board that features dramatic scare stories about older sisters dying from marijuana overdoses and the like. A news section hasn't been updated since 2003, and the drug facts link promises the "latest" research -- from 1999. In the Ecstasy section, no mention is made of Dr. George Ricaurte, the author of a Science article in 2002 that was retracted because the substance given to research animals was methamphetamine, not Ecstasy. However, a visitor can send an e-mail "Stoner greeting card" ("for when bad things happen 'cause someone was stoned"), which is the only humorous moment in the entire site.

By comparison to sites like yahooka.com, urineluck.com, or bluelight.nu, Freevibe is a cultural wasteland. On February 26 two people had posted their "anti-drug": someone named Dude, who said "my anti drug is the marines," and Jaden of LBC, who wrote: "My anti-drug? My future lets face it folks turning to drugs isnt exactly getting rid of your issue or issues that made you turn to them drugs a whole new set of issues sometimes the key to helping oneself is through helping others if your life sucks that bad join the military or do community service helping others is quite possibly the greatest feeling you can get when you feel appreciated."