Even if you know exactly what you’re taking, drug use is never safe — that said, it’s much safer when you do.

Through the work of organisations such as WEDINOS, The Loop, and SaferParty, we know a little more about the drugs in circulation. The report provided below is a summary of their findings over the last week.* This report is primarily UK-focused and couldn’t possibly cover everything, so if you find something I’ve missed please contact me and we’ll get it updated.

The absence of a product from this list doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be there; you might have something more dangerous than anything listed, but it just hasn’t been reported yet. A vital tool for any drug user is a testkit, which allows you to identify roughly what is actually in your stash. You can find them at https://www.reagent-tests.uk and if you need any help interpreting your results, testdrugs.info provides a web/android app for identifying a wide range of substances.

Final note: This report does not constitute medical advice. Some harm-reduction tips are offered for those who have already taken the compound, but if in doubt seek medical attention.

Standing Warning: Mislabelled Benzos

Dozens of samples from across the UK have been shown to be mis-sold, primarily a glut of etizolam being presented as diazepam and alprazolam. For the time being, it is advised to mistrust anything that didn’t come from the literal pharmacist because these samples have been pressed into convincing pills, even sold in blister packs, and reagent testing between these substances is very difficult. These “street blues” have been implicated in deaths across the country, and are not to be taken lightly

Standing Warning: “Cannabis e-liquids”

Over the last few months, over a dozen reports have come in of substances sold as cannabis vape liquid which contain no cannabis whatsoever, and instead contain synthetic cannabinoids such as 4F-MDMB-BINACA. Does that name sound intimidating? Good. It’s a bizarre substance which started to appear a few months ago and about which we still know basically nothing. All we can do is compare it to previous “noids”, which have caused thousands of seizures, heart attacks and deaths.

While cannabis e-liquids are widely enjoyed in more sensible countries, the UK is not among those countries. Instead, the UK is subject to an unregulated criminal market where the low price, undetectability and ease of production for e-liquids made of concoctions like 5F-MDMB-PINACA render them a no-brainer for unscrupulous dealers. Did you notice that that’s a completely different substance to the one mentioned up top, by the way? There are hundreds, all with inscrutable names like that.

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Caffeine

Sold as: Amphetamine

Location: Ipswich

Advice: As substitutions go, this is probably one of the safer ones — caffeine is active at higher doses than amphetamine, better tolerated (particularly given that most of the population is using it regularly) and relatively safe on membranes. The exception to this, of course, is among those allergic to caffeine, who need to be careful with any stimulant — even without substitution, caffeine is commonly cut into speed and related stimulants to bulk it out. The best way to test for the presence of caffeine in your speed is Mandelin reagent, which will turn green in the presence of amphetamine and brown in the presence of caffeine.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011048)

Caffeine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Caffeine

Warning: Variable Dose — 142–207mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich and Geneva

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/341xLHt

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: High dose — 249mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2L7EVkO

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: High Dose — 224mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2KYAbz4

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: High Dose — 224mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2KYDxlS

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: High Dose — 209mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/343pxys

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 252mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Zurich

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2HuD3BL

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Ludicrously High Dose — 300mg+

Substance: MDMA

Location: Lost Village Festival, Lincolnshire

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/325l8t5

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — ~280mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Lost Village Festival, Lincolnshire

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/30CsP9H

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — ~270mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Lost Village Festival, Lincolnshire

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/32cnO8x

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Methamphetamine

Sold as: Amphetamine

Location: Dundee

Advice: The key difference here is a distinct dose differential between the pair — methamphetamine, in addition to its more-aggressive stimulation, is dosed a good deal lower than amphetamine. This means that taking a normal amphetamine dose with this substitution will place the user in a much more stimulated and less sociable place, so the key risks would revolve around anxiety or aggression. As with any powder, reagent test where possible and take tiny individual doses, at least when starting a new batch.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011256)

Methamphetamine info: https://bit.ly/2IxQRJJ

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Caffeine

Sold as: Ephedrine

Location: Somerset? (T517 is the postcode?)

Advice: The advice for this is effectively the same as the caffeine/amphetamine substitution above, the only issue being that the dose differential is smaller in this case and it’s almost impossible to identify the difference between ephedrine and caffeine using common testing reagents. In this case, we would recommend a small allergy-test dose before using any such sample in normal doses in order to identify whether or not you personally will react badly to increasing doses, even if it doesn’t tell you much about the sample’s chemical composition.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011279)

Caffeine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Caffeine

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Cocaine

Sold as: Noopept

Location: Chester

Advice: God, this week has been weird. However, the maximum recommended dose of Noopept, a Soviet intelligence-boosting drug, is 40mg spread over the course of the day in doses no larger than 10mg, so assuming normal dosage protocol the risks of this substitution are pretty low. We would recommend reagent-testing this sample with Liebermann reagent.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011287)

Cocaine info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Cocaine

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Etizolam

Sold as: Viagra

Location: Edinburgh

Advice: Welp, spoke too soon. Given that this pill looks more like a diazepam than any sildenafil I’ve ever seen, we can only hope that the person who submitted this called it Viagra as a joke. If not, we can only advice normal benzo protocol once you realise (and you will) — don’t redose, don’t do anything stupid and maybe get someone to keep an eye on you if it’s coming on strong.

Hopefully you’re already with someone you trust, given the intimate nature of this situation, but they might be a little disappointed with the sudden left turn their evening has taken.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011124)

Etizolam info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Etizolam

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: 2C-B

Sold as: 2C-E

Location: Reading

Advice: These substances are extremely closely-related, which means that the differences in experience are small enough that you wouldn’t necessarily have a ruinous experience through this substitution (indeed, 2C-B is generally preferred over its body-load-y cousin) — these substances may induce subtly different forms of visuals, headspaces and body highs, but their dose windows and risk levels for difficult trips are broadly comparable so, in terms of safety, the subsitution isn’t considered particularly risky. It is possible to identify the difference using a Robadope reagent, however, which would produce a rich purple in response to 2C-B and a lighter, fainter pink in the presence of 2C-E.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011359)

2C-B info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/2C-B

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: Chloroquine

Sold as: MDMA

Location: Cardiff

Advice: Never mind, it got weird again. Chloroquine is an anti-malarial medication widely used in the developing world, which is obviously quite rarely-prescribed in the UK. The risks at regular dosage are pretty slender (chloroquine is dosed at 500mg, so you would have to snort a frankly enormous amount to do yourself lasting harm), so the primary danger would be repeatedly redosing when faced with a lack of effect. As ever, we advise strongly against redosing in such a situation — particularly with common substitutions like NEP this can be a deadly habit.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample 000041069)

Chloroquine info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine

Warning: Mislabelled Substance

Substance: MDMA

Sold as: 2C-B

Location: Buckinghamshire

Advice: The harm of this substitution is pretty minimal based on the dose difference alone — even a heavy 2C-B dose of 45mg+ would produce pretty minimal effects in all but the most sensitive users, and MDMA is a lot more resistant to bad experiences than 2C-B so psychologically the risks are pretty slender too.

Hell, the main thing you have to worry about here is disappointment. We can’t help with that.

Source: http://www.wedinos.org/db/samples/ (Sample W011282)

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Unknown Contaminants

Substance: MDMA + ???

Location: Bern

Advice: First off the bat, the pressing alone is concerning. This is a direct copy of a press from last year from the Netherlands’ Q-Dance crew, and represents the first knock-off I’ve seen to replicate the dual-colour press they’ve been using recently. This places all dual-colour pills into question where previously it could be considered indicative of quality.

SaferParty was unable to identify the taint found in this sample, so while it may simply be an inert byproduct we can have no confidence that the contents are evenly remotely fit for consumption. If you have recently obtained any blue/white Skypes like these, please submit them to a powerful lab like WEDINOS or EnergyControl for further analysis so we can find out what the hell is going on with them.

Source: https://bit.ly/2jV0taH

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely Variable Dose — 15 and 37mg

Substance: 2C-B

Location: Zurich

Advice: This might be the weirdest advice we’ve ever had to give — if you have these pills, the safest way to proceed is to crush them all together, mix it up and test doses starting from a presumption of around 30–35% purity (i.e. that each mg of the resulting powder contains 0.3–0.35mg of 2C-B) at least and working from there. SaferParty helpfully includes total pill weight, which indicates in these samples that they are 6–16% 2C-B. However, we have no idea if these represent an upper or lower limit to the dose variation from pill to pill — for all we know the majority of pills in this batch could be 5mg or they could be 50mg.

Source: https://bit.ly/2lTaqpL

2C-B info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/2C-B

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 297mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Innsbruck

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2lTaohD

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 217mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Vienna

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2kp1bNK

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 226mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Vienna

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2kp1bNK

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 232mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Vienna

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2kp1bNK

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

Warning: Extremely High Dose — 235mg

Substance: MDMA

Location: Vienna

Advice: Avoid redosing, stay cool and maintain adequate hydration. Many users will dehydrate through sweat, but sweating also sheds electrolytes and some users have suffered from hyponatremia from drinking only water to replenish themselves. If possible, find a sports drink like Lucozade or, if no other solutions are available, add a pinch of salt to the occasional glass of water.

Source: https://bit.ly/2kp1bNK

MDMA info: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/MDMA

*Warnings are also released by local police forces, in-house testing at festivals, and by users at https://pillreports.net. These warnings are, however, are unquantified and often unreliable so they are given less weight.