Why do we call them RCs on Bluelight?

[JBrandon]

These products are designer drugs, plain and simple. On other forums, where sources are discussed, people try to hide behind the RC moniker, SWIMing, and plant talk, but all of us and all of LE know exactly what this shit is.

On those forums and when dealing with "vendors", I get the need to use these terms. But why do we do it here? This is about harm reduction and discussion. By referring to dealers as vendors and designer drugs as RCs, we put the idea into the heads of the naive and young that this is so much more legit of an enterprise than it is.

I realize a lot of vendors would take offense to being referred to as a dealer, but at the end of the day, how many of them pay taxes on these sales? How many of them, if someone were to OD, would not immediately close up shop and disappear? There are some vendors that I fucking love and respect, but at the end of the day, if you have to use hushmail to talk about a purchase, you're not exactly a legit business.

This being said, I personally have no problem with the terminology we use, I just wonder sometimes if all this RC and vendor talk is lulling people into a false sense of security. If in any way I felt that this terminology helped to keep this scene out of the mainstream and under the radar, I would back it 100%, but I think we are well past those days now. I could be wrong, and I'm open to other views.

 

[Swerlz]

RC stands for Research Chemical.. its not a marketing tactic of any kind.. All drugs at one point were "designer". Someone had to think it up, draw it out, cook it up, and test it out. We don't allow "branded RC" discussion here for a reason. It could be any-fuckin-thing..

It's impossible to keep things like that out of the mainstream.. cause once the mass gets a hold of it.. its only downhill from there

 

[3rd_I_blind]

Interesting point.

I actually had an argument one time with a guy who was truly convinced they were called research chemicals because they were used in research. Especially funny since he was in med-school and didn't even bulge under my arguments that MDMA, amphetamine, ketamine etc. are also heavily used in scientific research.

However, dealer and vendor are both euphemisms; the drug-prefix is what matters (at least in terms of the legitimacy of your business).

Still funny thinking back about a pound of 4-FMP labelled as 'analytical standard for GC/MS reference'. You could make quite the number of fancy calibration curves with that quantity of analytical standard material.

 

[Solipsis]

Apparently you experience the 'research chemical' terminology as having these connotations that we are actually doing bonafide research on them but for me personally that is not the case. I read 'research chemical' as the same as designer drug. For me it is not an implicit attempt at euphemizing the whole phenomenon.
Using SWIM or saying that you will feed your plant with it are however in my experience explicit attempts. And we don't do that here at bluelight.

So then the question remains why do we not use the terminology 'designer drugs'? I guess that choice is not a deliberate one, such things tend to evolve naturally. We probably have a tendency to use the terms that are interpreted with the least effort, the term 'research chemical' or RC requires little effort since is has been established in the course of time and it has not been found particularly offensive.
The term 'designer drug' is not particularly offensive either but I personally do not use it since it feels to me like it is the term someone who has no experience with this uses. You know what it's like when a news reporter tries to pronounce a term seemingly tasting the word in his or her mouth like it's the very first time and it is awkward and almost from a foreign language? This tends to happen when someone has to pronounce a word but hates to be associated with it in any way. So it comes out as alien as possible to carry the impression that it is in fact alien to that person. That is what designer drug is like to me, it's technical and used mostly to explain how compounds are designed to circumvent laws. In practice in the course of time, people involved with them just did not tend to say them and it has grown this way.

 

[Mike Boogie]

They're called RC's because not much scientific research has been done on them... technically though, they're drugs and should be in the same category as the rest of the drugs.. however I do feel that they deserve the title of 'research chemicals' - as there's a lot of people who are willing to be guinea pigs in the name of research.

Not all RC's will be abused. There's so much more out there waiting to be explored too.

 

[3rd_I_blind]

They're called RC's because not much scientific research has been done on them... technically though, they're drugs and should be in the same category as the rest of the drugs.. however I do feel that they deserve the title of 'research chemicals' - as there's a lot of people who are willing to be guinea pigs in the name of research.

This is definitely not true... The correct term for all these substances is designer drugs since they were specifically designed to mimic certain other chemicals or to bind to specific receptors in the CNS. The term 'research chemical' was coined by clever vendors operating through the Internet. By selling newly developed designer drugs as 'for research only'-chemicals, they attempted to circumvent the 'criminal intent' necessary to be prosecuted. Just like Sigma-Aldrich can sell MDMA, LSD and all those other substances; because they are not meant for anything but scientific research and thus there is no criminal intent in selling the substance.

Some further comment on your post:
- There is no 'the drugs' just as there is no single 'category' in which drugs are placed.
- If all of us using these chemicals is part of 'research' the who is doing the double-blinding, who is in the control group and who is standardizing the measurements? I do not think that Shulgin's +/++/+++/++++ scale qualifies...

 

[knock]

I always thought designer drug sounded like something that came out of the fashion industry. Do you like my new Prada phenethylamine derivative?

 

[JBrandon]

RC stands for Research Chemical.. its not a marketing tactic of any kind.. All drugs at one point were "designer". Someone had to think it up, draw it out, cook it up, and test it out. We don't allow "branded RC" discussion here for a reason. It could be any-fuckin-thing..

It's impossible to keep things like that out of the mainstream.. cause once the mass gets a hold of it.. its only downhill from there

I think you missed my point. I'm aware of what RC stands for. I just notice as I read more and more that people have these fucked up ideas about how legitimate this industry is. Some people act like just because a vendor has a website and takes PayPal the business is on par with ordering from Amazon.

People think vendors don't cut their products. PLEASE! Every drug dealer knows that all their profit is in the cut. Vendors do too. Sure there is some natural variance in how people react and there are degrees of purity to synths... but come on, look at the wildly ranging doseages people report - for example, you should never need 8mg of DOC to hit threshold effects. Just like with illegal drugs, you have a long chain here. You have the synth in China, the 1st vendor who probably doesn't cut it much (if even) because he's ordering kilograms, then you have a million small-time redistributors who buy and sell to the consumer and each other. Often times, it moves through a lot of hands - not as many as cocaine does, I am sure. Since people don't expect this to be going on in the RC scene, they act as if the person they're buying from has analytically tested the product or synthed it themselves... far from the reality.

Then I see people who get ripped off in a deal start bitching about going to small claims court or calling the BBB... HA! Talk about being out of touch with what is going on here!

Now would they try this if they bought their shit from someone in the back of a van in a shitty neighborhood? Fuck no. But because the dealer is called a "vendor" and the drugs are called "RC"s, there is this whole different set of expectations. The facade of legitimacy is exactly that, a facade, and I understand why it is there and why we need it, but it definitely flies over the head of a lot of people who get into this scene.

On that same note, it is truly hilarious when a website will have a word like "high" in it's name but then try to pretend these products are for scientific research. You can't have one thread where someone is selling drugs "for research only" and five posts all around it about people getting blasted out of their minds and expect that to provide any legal protection whatsoever.

Apparently you experience the 'research chemical' terminology as having these connotations that we are actually doing bonafide research on them but for me personally that is not the case. I read 'research chemical' as the same as designer drug. For me it is not an implicit attempt at euphemizing the whole phenomenon.
Using SWIM or saying that you will feed your plant with it are however in my experience explicit attempts. And we don't do that here at bluelight.

So then the question remains why do we not use the terminology 'designer drugs'? I guess that choice is not a deliberate one, such things tend to evolve naturally. We probably have a tendency to use the terms that are interpreted with the least effort, the term 'research chemical' or RC requires little effort since is has been established in the course of time and it has not been found particularly offensive.

I totally get this, and I guess it makes sense. RC does have great utility because as soon as you say it, I know exactly what you mean - even more so than "designer drug", which seems like a broader and more encompassing term.

I think the issue that bothers me is that for you, I, and 3rd I Blind, we know exactly what RC means. The euphemism is understood... but as you can see even in this thread, I think the meaning is lost on many people.

(Thanks @3rd I Blind for handling that for me!)

At the end of the day, I understand why we use that terminology - it is what is most easily understood, as you pointed out. I guess I just feel at the same time that the language we use is responsible for a certain, perhaps small, amount of the irresponsible and reckless behavior we see.

 

[TestOfSanity]

I read 'research chemical' as the same as designer drug. For me it is not an implicit attempt at euphemizing the whole phenomenon. Using SWIM or saying that you will feed your plant with it are however in my experience explicit attempts. .

I agree with this statement, those terms are one in the same to me. I also believe that "SWIM", and "feeding the plants", is a feeble (at best), attempt to deny using a drug, probably by somebody using their parents computer. It seems this is something of a running joke on other message boards. Examples like, "I found this trip report in the pages of a book at the library", or "my hamster wrote down his experience to share", or cheesier yet, "in a dream I took ***". Give me a break. You're really fooling the outsiders looking in.8)

 

[knock]

I guess I just feel that at the same time that the language we use is responsible for a certain, perhaps small, amount of the irresponsible and reckless behavior we see.

Personally I think Research Chemical has "scarier" connotations than Designer Drug; the former might take your face off, while the latter, as noted above, would probably go well with my new scarf.

 

[JBrandon]

A lot of people have an aversion to the word "drug", but not "chemical".

 

[CaptainAmerica]

A lot of people have an aversion to the word "drug", but not "chemical".

Who are you speaking about? The people who use RC's and drugs, just drugs?

If its the people who do RC's and various drugs I think you're wrong. In my experience it's just the opposite, "Chemicals? Nah man I'm ok" and "Oh word, so you're saying its a synthetic drug a lot like mdma?"

 

[JBrandon]

In my experience it's just the opposite, "Chemicals? Nah man I'm ok" and "Oh word, so you're saying its a synthetic drug a lot like mdma?"

Hahaha, soo true!


Who I was referring to are people with no drug experience but maybe a casual curiosity or interest. I was probably making a blanket statement that doesn't hold much water though - it is just that I have a few friends who are interested if I say "hypnotic" or "tranquilizer" or "empathogen" but then you drop the "drugs" word and it's a different story.

I think they are scared by the implication of illegality or "dirtiness" that often comes with the word. I always get this vibe that to them, my "drugs" come from a shady character in a dark alley, whereas everything else comes from a clean, well-lit pharmacy, where everything is pure and probably packaged by an attractive blonde.

 

[greenmeanies]

As the foreword to PIHKAL states, these ARE indeed legitimate Chemicals for Research. It may not be "legitimate" research like that which you could take a photo and put in a textbook for children (look at the smart scientist developing a cure for cancer with his research chemical!), but it is in fact legitimate research on the human mind! We are all searching for medicinal compounds to realign our spirits, give us perspective for the world we live in, alleviate depression with minimal side effects, and hell, maybe have a little fun at the end of the day. Surely that puts us well in the realm of real psychoanalytical testing? I would venture that there is more useful DATA created every MONTH on sites like bluelight regarding new and otherwise untested drugs, than in one hundred pages of legitimate scientific journals like PubMed that Nichols and other inventors are publishing. They might have useful numbers of receptor affinities, but the proof of the pudding is truly in the eating when it comes to the mind!

Our global political climate is so anti-drug now that all such research into altered states of consciousness MUST be hidden under false pretenses. But I count myself among Shulgin's own close entourage of intrigued professionals when I knowingly ingest a borderline-illegal chemical compound with the intent of feeling something out of the ordinary.

It is the War on Drugs that has made "research chemical" into a facade, not the other way around.

 

[any major dude]

^ good post.

I find the term "designer drug" unhelpful & somewhat offensive. The real "designer drugs" are the things like the endless array of statins used to treat high cholesterol. Lipitor, the first of this ilk, works perfectly fine, yet pharma co's keep inventing new ones in order to have a "fancy new drug" under patent well before the previous edition's patent expires. The amount of R&D dedicated to designing new drugs to avoid patent laws far exceeds the amount done on truly innovative things. In the realm of large pharmaceutical companies anyway.

When people hear designer drug, they think of substances designed to avoid laws like the CSA etc, but most drug design goes into getting around patent law.

Also, very few drugs were actually designed to mimic the effects of illegal drugs. Most PiHKAL/TiHKAL substances were logical extrapolations on existing substances, mostly in a search for something new, not a way to skirt the CSA. The substances coming out of Nichols' team at Purdue are usually designed to perform a (more) specific action in order to better study various 5-HT systems in mammalian brains.

Even methoxetamine, developed totally underground, was a search for something new as opposed to a less illegal version of ketamine.

 

[JBrandon]

That's an excellent point, particularly regarding the Shulgin drugs. He was out for something new and to call his work designer drugs is definitely disrespectful of his intentions. I do think however that it is a fair term in the current context of their use. A lot of people, myself included, try them in the search for something new to experience and learn, but you can't deny that there is a contingent of the population that just wants them because they're a more available high (and cheaper too).

On a different note, and granted my source on this is Wiki, I thought Methoxetamine was expressly designed to skirt analog laws with a slight consideration for avoiding bladder damage.

And while I'm with you on the 2Cs and DOx compounds, there is no way that things like bk-mdma were designed for any reason than to mimic MDMA.

 

[Psyke]

This makes me want to start performing double blind studies with trusted groups of researchers (or should I say designers?) and recording/writing down the perceived effects/side effects.

Especially with Nbome class chemicals where this would actually be real testing (research) on a compound with very little known about it.

 

[jamaica0535]

Chemicals that have not been thoroughly researched = research chemical.

The people using them are pretty much the ones doing the research for the most part due to them being grey area.

I have done enough methylone to consider it easier on the brain and body than MDMA. I know of a girl that ate 2g of methylone at once that I know was clean in a suicide attempt, and she survived. By all means, not a precise guage of what can be surivived or an LD50 but it shows that it is almost impossible to accidentally fatally overdose on it because 2 grams of powder is hard to consume by accident.

 

[change-jug]

To me the phrase "designer drugs" brings to mind mid 90`s local news fear mongering. I feel that the phrase is most used by ignorant know it all types who will also attempt to describe their effects as "ecstasy like" or "cocaine like" or "lsd like". Really in short I think the only people I`ve heard use that word are news casters or worrisome soccer moms.

 

[any major dude]

A lot of people, myself included, try them in the search for something new to experience and learn, but you can't deny that there is a contingent of the population that just wants them because they're a more available high (and cheaper too).

Very true

On a different note, and granted my source on this is Wiki, I thought Methoxetamine was expressly designed to skirt analog laws with a slight consideration for avoiding bladder damage.

I suppose that's possible. There's also a lengthy interview with its creator in vice that's worth a read, and from that it certainly seems he was searching for something useful & different. Granted it was designed with intent, but i doubt that intent (or much of it) was to skirt drug laws, as it doesn't really do that particularly well.

And while I'm with you on the 2Cs and DOx compounds, there is no way that things like bk-mdma were designed for any reason than to mimic MDMA.

One could make that argument. But it seems it was made more so to test a pharmacological theory than to explicitly mimic MDMA. Also, if more than one Cozzi & Shulgin et al paper was published on it, i doubt it was made with the sole intent of giving ravers something to play with. Not that the latter is an entirely ignoble pursuit