APB pills

[specialspack]

Are there a lot of pills being sold as ecstasy that actually contain either or both 5 and 6-APB? Rather than "benzo fury" pellets actually marketed as such.

If not, why is that? When piperazines first became popular there was a period when they flooded the market. Why aren't people pressing up these legal, and potent drugs?

 

[justinsayno]

were piperzines popular ever ?

BZP is a fucking horrible substance...

as for the 'rc sold as' question....dunno....but what i do know is i know people who do coke and/or MD but wont touch rcs.
Everytime they bang on about coke or MD that lasted for hours i do wonder...

 

[Funkadelica]

Perhaps it's due to the price actually being the same amount, if not more, than MDMA itself? I certainly know a few websites offering G's at a much higher price. Those pellets go for the same price as a good pill as well, so I'm guessing there isn't much profit to be made to pass them out. I believe there were pills going about with the mix a year ago or so. Can't properly remember but it was like C 10's or something. Will find the report when I can!

 

[Mental Kenny]

Perhaps it's due to the price actually being the same amount, if not more, than MDMA itself? I certainly know a few websites offering G's at a much higher price. Those pellets go for the same price as a good pill as well, so I'm guessing there isn't much profit to be made to pass them out. I believe there were pills going about with the mix a year ago or so. Can't properly remember but it was like C 10's or something. Will find the report when I can!

Exactly this. A few years back I remember seeing BZP powder on sale for something silly like 7 pounds per gram, seriously not joking, that was back when it was still legal, the reason pips ended up so widely distributed is their silly low prices compared with MD-like compounds, obviously the following MD drought had a role too.

 

[Dioxy]

Mental Kenny has, I think, hit the nail on the head by looking at the market. BZP was around at a time that we were experiencing a huge MDMA drought, and it was extremely cheap.
If someone sells anything under the pretence that it is MDMA they are carrying the risk of being charged with supply of a class A. In practise they might get a lighter sentence for an unregulated drug sold under a class A moniker, but the law isn't on their side, so there wouldn't be enough benefit to selling APB as Ecstasy, given that it has roughly the same value as it and is unregulated, against the risk. That said, I'm sure it will happen, occasionally.

 

[specialspack]

If someone sells anything under the pretence that it is MDMA they are carrying the risk of being charged with supply of a class A. In practise they might get a lighter sentence for an unregulated drug sold under a class A moniker, but the law isn't on their side, so there wouldn't be enough benefit to selling APB as Ecstasy, given that it has roughly the same value as it and is unregulated, against the risk. That said, I'm sure it will happen, occasionally.

I don't see that as a problem. The fact that websites are completely legally selling pressed pellets without any hassle from the man, surely indicates that anyone selling pills on the street would be totally fine. We didn't see people hauled up in court for dealing methoxetamine as "rhino-ket" or whatever, and that was certainly going on quite a bit just before the ban kicked in. All you could really be done for was breaking the Medicine's Act - I have no ideas what the penalties for selling an unregulated substance for human consumption are? Less than those for possession with intent to supply of a class A substance, I would imagine? And I would have thought the idea of not getting a heavy prison sentence fairly salient to potential suppliers.

Dealers and customers are more sophisticated these days, people have got used to the idea of novel substances, I don't think people need to be sold "fake E" to get them to try stuff - mephedrone changed all of that.

Price I suppose might be an issue, but looking online you could probably get and APB for around £10 per g in bulk, which isn't far from the cost of piperazines suggested above. Incidentally, when I said "popular" I meant there were a lot of them around, and favoured by suppliers, not customers - I realise most people disliked them. I've no idea what MDMA costs in bulk so I have nothing to compare these figures with.

The MDMA drought must have been a big contributing factor though, you're right.

 

[Transform]

If you sell it as ecstasy/MDMA then you are liable for prosecution as if you were selling the real deal. In many cases I expect that means the legal incentive for selling APB pills is not there as a result.

Piperazines could be had from chemical suppliers for well under £1/g through a shell company, which means those who owned pill presses could churn out pills for nearly nothing. APBs on the other hand are challenging to get in large amounts and only now does the price seem to have dropped below the £10/g region for large quantities. Considering that the sort of well connected people who press pills can obtain kg amounts of MDMA for around the same price, the incentive just isn't there for the big manufacturers, especially now there is no longer a drought of MDMA (and has been a drought of 6-APB!).

 

[Dioxy]

I don't see that as a problem. The fact that websites are completely legally selling pressed pellets without any hassle from the man, surely indicates that anyone selling pills on the street would be totally fine.

True if they're selling APB as APB, but if they're selling APB as MDMA (knowingly pulling the wool over customers' eyes) then the law is different, and I think that's actually a sensible piece of legislation as far as prohibition goes:

If you sell it as ecstasy/MDMA then you are liable for prosecution as if you were selling the real deal. In many cases I expect that means the legal incentive for selling APB pills is not there as a result.

(Thanks for putting that more clearly!)

Dealers and customers are more sophisticated these days, people have got used to the idea of novel substances, I don't think people need to be sold "fake E" to get them to try stuff - mephedrone changed all of that.

I agree, there has been a massive attitude shift in the casual recreational drug user demographic in between the end of the BZP era and the start of the Mephedrone era. Friends that would never touch the Piperazines have abused Mephedrone to the moon and back. Admittedly 'meow-meow' (lol, sorry) is a slightly more accessible drug, but personally I had some wicked weekends on BZP/TFMPP, though I didn't suffer from the nausea or most of the other reported side effects.