Chapter Eight

Bath salts? RCs?

Right this very moment, somewhere in the United States, a feral drug addict has obtained a
legal high from a neighborhood head shop or corner liquor store. The ferocious creature has no
idea what the legal high consists of, what the potency is, or even what the legal high will feel like.
A psychedelic, a dissociative, a stimulant, an entactogenhaha, hell if he knows. The daemon will
have done the substanceway too much of itwith nary a digital scale in his possession. He will
then embark on an eight-to-twelve-hour bender with effects including heightened heart rate,
delirium, flights of fancy, euphoria, eroticism, super-human strength, paranoia, and the everubiquitous: stark-naked and streaking through the streets while sword fighting an imaginary
griffin resembling Frankie Muniz. This allegory will end quite routinely with the bare-assed
assailant wrestled to the ground by four to five police officers who will unleash a dominatrix
goodie bag of handcuffs, stun guns, batons, billy clubs, or pepper sprayjust so he stops fidgeting!
He will then be taken to poison control or triage so to be administered a different legal high like
Valium or Benzodiazepam. He will still be stark naked beneath the hospital gown, yes.
Its weird, this first paragraphI just made it up in my head. Its like, How funny would
it be if this new breed of drugs, if someone whos from Florida delves into these and they, like,
totally end up in that kind of scenario. Something about that combination of Epcot Center,
alligators, hydrofoils, and Charlie Crist just does something to those people. Cuz, in all honesty,
every bath salts/designer drug/legal high panic story that graced news pagesand there arent
many, actuallystemmed from the victim (read: ass hat) residing in Florida. I wouldnt really care
so much, but for one niggling part: Those stories are damn effective!
I have to give brownie points to the marketing and PR teams responsible for this because
that accomplishment touched on all corners of the PR/marketing/advertising Goals to Strive For
pentagram including creating a greater narrative, being in control of the debate, avoiding pesky
scrutiny or follow-up questioning, achieving mass saturation with only one or two small press
conferences, and best of all, utilizing this all with little to no money spent. Every company on
Earth would killkill!to get those kinds of results. Yet its the new class of legal highs and the
market for them that has given us these peculiar advertising triumphs.

You have from 2012 in south Florida the story of thirty-one-year-old Rudy Eugene who
went on a naked rampage, attacking a homeless man and eating his face before being killed by
police. The real victim of that day, the one that will forever pay atonement for this crime it didnt
commit nor suffer, is MDPV. The story caught national attention because it was bizarre and freaky.
And we havent had a good old-fashioned, American, eat-thy-neighbor story since the Donner
Party. So the story hit the American psyche. The news also brought to light an obscure drug that
escaped national attention until thena street-name bath salts narcotic, MDPV, or 3,4Methylenedioxy Pyrovalerone.
The funny thing is, it later turned out that Rudy Eugene never heard ofmuch less used
bath salts or any stimulant before or during commission of the crime. In fact, after further
investigation at his home and in toxicology reports, the only drug he did have was marijuana. It
seems fitting: Do marijuana, get fat munchies, then nosh on a homeless guys face. So, it sucks,
the story went viral and everyone in America overnight now heard of this drug I myself already
tried a year or two prior. I happened to really like PV (slang), so to now discuss this new party
drug with friends took on a new twist.
Sometimes, really the best way to get people to see past the hype and the terror of a certain
drug and to appreciate it for what it isnothing elseis to just get them to try it. I mean, yes, I
agree to an extent with the axiom that the best way to prevent drug addiction is to not try them in
the first place. But at the same time, I think that concept is a construct more than physiology or
biologyanthropology, yo. If you like something, you will like it. You will want to experience it
again at times in life. The first time I did chocolate in my life, I was hooked. I loved the taste
and the feelingdopamine release, FYIand knew I would use until death, or until pried from
my warm, sugary hands. I do chocolate almost daily. Yet I make it work for me. I dont suffer
obesity or diabetes. The same with drugs. And the same with addictive drugs. And the same with
PV.
But fuck, this cannibal thing, it continues to be a pain in my arse.
If, when, I persuade a certain friend to try a new drug its because Ive already tried it
myself first and did the associated research to vet it. I, as well, know the friend is a crackhead
beforehand, therefore sparing me from any peer pressure guilt that I wasnt going to have anyway.
When I suggest to try PV, or Foxy Methoxy, or Methylone, or GHB, its because I already know
what their tastes are and that this would assimilate nicely into their current narco-schema. And

Ive had certain success in getting people to try something new. The most I ask for is try it once or
twice, and try it under tutelage so there are no unexpected issues. When one is prepared, then one
can prevent the number-one, most-preventable affliction in America: sketch. If, after all that, they
still dont like it, then its not the drug for them. Happens.
Post-cannibal, Ive continued using bath salts on occasion. I find them to be a special
treat because of their relative difficulty in sourcing. I have offered fellow people to share in my
novel delicacy(-ies), with mixed results. Pre-cannibal, I would just describe the certain substance
as similar to a well-known one such as cocaine, methamphetamine, Adderall, marijuana, ketamine,
and so on. Mostly that would smooth over concerns, as long as they know its similar to a substance
theyre already familiar with. Much more importantly, I volunteer to do the freaking thing right in
front of them. Ninety-five percent of the timeI kid you notpeople just want to see once I eat
the substanceif I will then die. And right-on-the-spot die, too. In realityIm sorrybut do you
know how difficult that is involving anything ingestible that isnt a ninja sai or dry ice? I mean, if
that mythical narcotic existed that would kill you on the spot with just a few lines, then wouldnt
it be more popular with the suicide crowd? Why is everyone still popping whole bottles of Tylenol
and then only maybe dying? How cumbersome.
But alas, Im a peer pressurephile and I like corrupting. And a good motivator will put up
with much hesitance and dawdling in order to effect a certain outcome. It does get frustrating
having to handhold some people through some rather comical worries. Remember, a grand
majority of Americans have tried alcohol. And a slightly-smaller grand majority of Americans
have beer-bonged alcohol. And isnt there lately some new trend of butt chugging alcohol that has
infiltrated local high schools and elementary schools? I may never find the true answer regarding
that gem, but if they can handle all those rigors listed, then Im sure they can handle something
new.
The funnyand frustratingpart, post-cannibal, is that I now have to preface my New
Drug Orientation spiels with this: Also, I have to mention one other thing. This [drug] goes by
another name that you may have heardits called bath salts too. Almost unanimously, I will get
this response: Isnt that what that face-eater guy in Florida was high on? It seems that everyone
everyone!in America has read that story. How did such fewer people read the retraction about
the cannibal only days after? I mean, on MSNBC.com alone, it was the top story on the front page
as breaking newsin bold. I remember that vividly because that is how I learned of the retraction;

the retraction revealing that Rudy Eugene was not on bath salts. Yet, here we are. Year 2016 and
Rudy Eugene was on bath salts when he did iteven for those who researched it, and even if they
read the retraction articles to boot. People want to hear the story they want to hear, I guess.
So now, even after completing my spiel, trying the drug in front of themeven offering
my right arm and a cash rewardthat hungry gent in Miami stands in the way. I wish Rudy Eugene
had just eaten himselfseriously.
Odder yet, you have some bizarre manifestations that dont otherwise happen. For some
crystal meth users, bath salts-talk engenders some fascinating quotables:
Uh, Im sorry, I just dont want to be a zombie.
Im afraid of getting addicted to that stuff. Isnt it going to make my skin waste away?
I just want to stick with the crystal that I know and Im used to.
And so on. How quickly its forgotten that crystal meth is the worlds worst drug, no? Ah,
no, not anymore, readers. Sigh. Its only a matter of time before Schedule Zero is added to the
DEA scheduling list. Because this will become quite commonplace, just wait.
***
I first stumbled on the bewildering world of bath salts and research chemicals via Silk
Road 1.0 on the Dark Web. After Silk Road had matured and filled out, there of course were the
staples like cocaine, marijuana, and LSD for sale, but there were these esoteric alternatives that
Ive never heard of. And even then, newer ones were being introduced. You had psychedelics such
as DMT, 25i-NBOMe, Foxy Methoxy and Moxy, and the 2-C family; a new dissociative named
Mexxie; stimulants such as 4-FA, Mephedrone, Pentedrone, and A-PVP; and of course the
synthetic spice marijuanas like JWH-018, and JWH-019, and JWH-020, and JWH-021, and
JWH-022, and JWH-023, and JWH-024, and JWH-025and JWH-026. Oh, the JWHs continue
into the 400s! (JWH-018 was the original synthetic marijuana known as K2.)
I started seeing numerous listings for the same esoteric drug and that piqued my interest. I
wanted to see what was so appealing with these novel new highs. I decided I would narrow my
To Do list to the obscure drugs that had numerous listings by different vendors. Stimulant-wise,
by Silk Road 1.0s peak, cocaine led the pack with around 400 listings for sale worldwide from a

multitude of vendors. Methamphetamine was second with 100 to 200 listings. Either speed paste
or mephedrone was third (Im pretty sure speed paste) with around 70 listings. And so on.
I decided to try MDPV as my first new narcotic that wasnt a traditional, established one.
I searched Google for MDPV and especially perused sites like Erowid, Drugs-Forum.org,
Bluelight, and Reddit. I wanted to see what other proclaimed tweakers thought of it and especially
if it could build upon the fun I get with MDMA, ecstasy, GHB, meth, and Adderall. The thing that
sold me were the vendors that simply, curtly added to their listings keywords like Super Coke,
Great meth alternative, and Its like Ritalin on Ritalin. The real deal clincher, Im sure, was
some guy on some message board that had mentioned doing PV and then accomplishing nothing
but watch porn for eight-plus hours straight and feeling filthy afterward. That sounded about right
to me. You aint doin it right if a something of shame isnt had by baggys end.
So, yes, I ordered a sample. It arrived and I did a small bump. MDPV isnt like cocaine.
You do two to three lines of it and youve done 200 to 300 percent too much, knucklehead. This
is very much an overarching theme among the knuckleheads that made the press and gave MDPV
its vaunted, shameful reputation. MDPV sold at gas stations or head shops is a supplement
marketed as plant food, bath salts, Blue Wave, or catnip. Like the VHS-head-cleanercum-nail-polish-remover poppers inhalants (Amyl Nitrate/Isobutyl Nitrate/Ethyl Chloride) that
preceded it, MDPV cant be sold as-is, for-human-consumption because it would then require
timely and costly FDA approval. Conversely, there is the solar system of diet drugs, muscle
builders, fountain-of-youth elixirs, and brain tonics that make up a multi-million-dollar empire.
And all heed caution to their commercial claims not having been evaluated by the Food and
Drug Administration. This productnot intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Here is a wrinkle in American philosophy. You can hawk and shill all you want, but to
actually get waivered is to make appear a business well-connected in DC power circles. You have
to know the players with clout in order to effect. If youre involved with bringing Proactiv acne
medicine to market, Lipozene, or privy to all that is Guthy-Renkerthen youre one of the
preeminent firms already. That said, the moment word gets out that a certain drug happens to be
fun, all bets are off. Just ask the good people at GNC what of our date-rapey friend GHB and its
swoll, bodybuilder devotees. It got fun!
Thus, MDPV must be sold as plant food or similar nonsense, void of ingredient listings,
void of tips or instructions on human ingestion, and void of potency figures. With brave, throw-

caution-to-the-wind junior college types ready to key bump any powder emblazoned with Strictly
Not for Human Consumption, then all that remains are the popcorn and the speed dial set for our
friends at Poison Control, USA.
How would you know how much drug to do if you dont know what the drug is, much less
its potency? Its already asking too much to prepare a little before doing a new drugand which
its name you already know first!much less one with no labeling or information whatsoever. Well,
I rose above that. I made sure to do my due diligence and find a source through Silk Road 1.0 that
had good reviews already, numerous sales transacted, preferably with product photos posted, and
located in the United States or Canada. The recipe for MDPV is already halfway the recipe that
gets you MDMA or MDA. Therefore, much of the MDPV and other cathinone-based narcotics
originate from Europe and China, which happen to be transshipment hubs for the global supply
chain. But I cant wait ten to thirty days for an obscure drug, and for it to come from an obscure
land! Its got to be speedy speed. Save the patience for mephedronea Europe-only bath salt I
will elucidate on soon.
Since I knew I wanted MDPV already, and since I could rest assured the quality and purity
was up to snuff, there was none of this guessing game or guinea-pigging that has sullied until now
research chemicals good name. I knew once I got the PV to only do a small, top-of-pinky-size
bump (~five milligrams). I had a portable milligram scale already. I then waited to see how I felt
before I proceeded with another bumpor not. I would be lying if I said I didnt err toward more
bumpsand fast. How else would I accelerate to the no-pants, naked-through-the-city-andhallucinating-before-dogpiled-by-seven-police-officers saga that links all disparate bath salt
sagas?
But at least I knew to not take a classic-style line or two at the beginning, which would be
cocaines territory and really not that far off from PVs instructions. But the RC strata is a new,
more-potent stratum versus the already-potent methamphetamine or cannabis-wax strata. Ten to
twenty milligrams of meth is good for a first dose, but more than twenty milligrams ofsay
Foxy Methoxy (a Shulgin-created psychedelic)is a problem. That comes from experience too.
Some of these newer classes of designer drugs are not only more potent, but their dose curves are
steeper! This is all easily ameliorated with a simple upgrade to a portable milligram scale (0.001
gram) versus the more commonplace, but less-sensitive (0.01 gram) digital scales. Those
thousandths of a gram will start to matter!

So, I found myself with a drug that takes from the better aspects of stimulants such as a
clean, buzzy high, heightened tactile sensation, utter enjoyment of music, little appetite, and energy
to do anything. And minus the bad part(s), which is the come down. When you finish your bag of
PV, you just finish. You end up kind of bummed, yes, because you finished your fun bag of PV.
But theres no fiending, no robbing your aunt of $50 so to score another sack. You can wait on
that. The key is to have some herb on hand, so to soften the gentle fall and scurry you to sleep.
Have the Weather Channel on the TV, a cheeseburger ready to eat after your herb, and lots of
liquids (coke and lemonade, not waterwhore we kidding)and the post-PV sleep will be
wondrous. And the wake up is but a life back to normalcy; the CNS synapses eagerly awaiting
your next course of actionwake and crank? Wake and bake? Wake and sobers-sake? Its your
body.
Now, I wont say that PV is perfect. It has its defects. Every good medicine does. Its a
horny-rabblerousing super dragon. You want low-down, animalistic demon sexand feel-goodyet-awful sentiment during the whole thing? You want to hear voices coming from nowhere? You
want that sense that everyone knows youre high, even if you may or may not look it? Well, this
is the medicine for you! You will shed forty poundseasyin two weeks, but its not without its
costs. I myself have been caught hooking up with a trick in a parking garagewithout a car! But
I should say: Regrets: No regrets. These are stories I will cherish with my grandkids someday.
OK, maybe someones grandkids, but probably not mine. Get ready for that, grandkids
everywhere!
***
The first time I tried Foxy Methoxy, or 5-MeO-DIPT: about three years ago. (Dont get
Foxy Methoxy confused with its narcotic-cousin, Moxy, or 5-MeO-MIPT; they are very similar,
yet are differentwith different dosages, effects, and pricing all inclusive.) Foxy Methoxy, as one
website has deemed it, is The Tryptamines Answer to MDMA. And I can vouch for that.
Foxy Methoxy is like MDMA, LSD, and ketamine all mixed into one. When doing the
drug, you first get the LSD effects with all the wavy lights and talking tomatoes. Then the ketamine
kicks in: You may visualize tree branches breaking off from their tree trunks and drifting off on
their own axis. Your limbs will feel the same way. Lastly, the MDMA effect will be felt throughout
it all, on its own level. You will feel like humping those talking tomatoes at some point.

Foxy Methoxy requires one to own, or have access to, a milligram scale (0.001 gram). This
medicine is quite effective at doses as low as 15 milligrams. Thats a very tiny amount. You put
that onto a small toilet paper square, ball it up, then parachute it (swallow it).
By the first time I did it, I had read up enough on itbut I guess still was not prepared for
what was to come. I did the Foxy anddespite my better knowledgestill did what I always warn
everyone not to do. Essentially, I did Foxy Methoxy while on a stimulantmeth. Dont do
psychedelics while on stimulants! Seriously. Psychedelics have their own energy; they dont need
dopamine, which will only serve to overclock things. Foxy Methoxy is a pumped-up drug, yet
should only last one to two hoursmaybe three. Then youre done with it as if some dime-store
trick from Fresno. But the stimulant will still have you awakeand for another four hours. By this
point, you just want to go to sleep. You already nutted. Theres not much left awaiting you. But
psychedelics feel as though watching a Doppler radar of a cyclone unfurling bigger and wider. The
converse is the come down, as if watching the Doppler cyclone retracting and retreating. So youre
sitting there for four extra hours in a cyclone time warp just waiting for the melatonin to set in,
and regurgitating the wonders and bewilderment of life you had already pondered on. Just dont
do stimulants and psychedelics, again. It wont kill youbut its just not much fun.
So, I did my meth and Foxy and walked from Adams Morgan to the US Capitol building
at night. This was springtime and a very nice night indeed. But not a night to be by yourself, and
trying a psychedelic like this for the first time in your life. I started freaking out (not outwardly of
course) whilst promenading the Mall thinking, I know I look high; I know I look like Im tripping
balls; that tomato looks hot It also doesnt help that once tripping on an acid, tactile functions
are rendered useless. Try to use your cell phone or a TV remote while on acid, and see how Rubiks
Cube it all becomes. You will be like a two-year-old using a TV remote or trying to order a
HotelTonight reservation.
I managed to call my friend Joe and get him to pick me up at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in
Downtown DC. I verbalized my paranoia throughout the car ride, and yet he still feigned interest
in obtaining some.
Foxy Methoxy: Its a fun one. But do it right.
***
Be proud: We have miraculously arrived at todaythe date this is being read. Come the
Dark Webs unofficial Date-the-Dark-Web-Mattered, and newfound interest surged in regards

to designer highs that mimic, equal, or even surpass traditional highs. Price is many times the first
criteria.
With the designer drugs, the idea is that chemists with surplus free time find the recipes for
patented medicinesmedicines that dont receive FDA approval. (FDA approval is not easy and
takes sometimes a decade before getting an answer. Plus, the millions a company must spend on
clinical trials and paperwork, and so forth.) Therefore, the chemistssome of whom work for
the very companies that patented these medicines (Shire, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Eli Lilly, et
al.)will obtain the recipe and manufacture the drugs on their own time and dollar. They will also
find a suitable, always-cute, cover-name nickname for the product such as cat nip, plant food,
or Starry Nights, and then unleash it onto an unsuspecting corner-liquor-store market.
But every time a new designer high gets pinned beneath the DEA Emergency Scheduling
apparatuswhere a drug gets temporary Schedule I status for one year while the DEA further
investigates the drug, and then adds it to permanent Schedule I status after that yearthose
chemists are ready with a very similar (yet totally different) drug ready for mass market. This drug
scenario is called analogs (or analogues, for the Brits).
My open question is this: Are we going to do a merry-go-round? Just keep adding these
drugs to Schedule I over and overand over and overand again? One by onejust classify
them under Emergency Scheduling Status, only to permanently banish them to the Schedule I
narcotics list? Hell, not even a Schedule II or Schedule IV here and there? Because, my state,
federal, and UN friends: If you think there are many new novel highs now, just you waitthe next
ten years will be a dizzy. Theres a lot of nuance possible with these fun drugs. Even cocaine has
a younger protg coming to market named 4-Fluorococaine.
Heres now the pessimist in me. The conspiracy theorist. See, this scenario is kind of what
some want. They dont care about all these new drugs being added to Schedule I, or whatever.
They know they cant possibly crack down on all these drugs in totality. Theres no way to stop
recreational narcotics. The world has devoted over 120 years toward the endeavor. Its futile. But
guess what, my friend: thats A-OK! The more the people to get pulled under the criminal-justice
double-dutch bus. The more the people to get busted for even small potatoes stuff like possession,
or Intent to Distribute, or even Conspiracy to Intent to Distribute. Whatever those mean. But
a helluva lot of people dont bother fighting back against any of this. Its bewildering. And legal
representation is expensive. And the hell if you can find legal representation that has the scientific

or biochemistry background to back up those legal cajones. So instead most will plea bargain.
They will take a smaller charge in exchange for possible smaller jail time, or something. And then
CCACorrections Corporation of Americawins.
All that is needed is a cannibal in Florida every so often.