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Designer Drugs

M

mayday

Bluelighter
Joined
May 29, 2002
Messages
285
Location
Adelaide, Australia
What actually _is_ a designer Drug?
Is it just some pozy term the media likes to hype up on? Or does it actually mean something?
My impression was that a designer drug was something that had to be manufactured in a suitable laboratory environment, such as MDMA. Nowadays, the media calls GHB a designer drug. GHB is naturally occuring per se so I dont call it "designer" I have to admit, in any volume worthy of recreational use, you need laboratory preparation...
So what do all of you think?
 
The term "designer drug" came from the occurence in the eighties of clever chemists making analogs of illegal drugs that gave much the same effects but were different by one or two molecules. As these substances were not identical to the banned ones they could be (at the time) legally made. They were "designed" to get around the law.
The American legal system quickly pushed through legislation to block this loophole, the controversial "Analog Laws". The term "designer drug" was given much press coverage, but people being the idiots thought it had to do with fashion etc, and thought the term came from the sort of people doing the drugs.
 
Originally posted by johnboy:
The term "designer drug" came from the occurence in the eighties of clever chemists making analogs of illegal drugs that gave much the same effects but were different by one or two molecules.
Do you mean "molecules" or "atoms" here?
Other than that, you have given a better explanation than anyone I else I know can...
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, he means "atoms". "Designer drugs" just implies, as johnboy said, that the drugs were "designed" by slightly altering a known psychoactive - whether to get around laws I don't know, but it sounds plausible. Read Alexander Shulgin's PIHKAL or TIHKAL for an example of this "designing" process - those books are all about changing existing drugs and seeing what happens to the drug.
When the media uses "designer drug" it means absolutely nothing. It's just that when they talk about a drug that hasn't been around that long it's always "designer". Ecstasy used to be "the designer drug Ecstasy". Now it's been around a while and everyone's heard of it it's just "Ecstasy".
 
Interesting! Thanks guys.
Far more to it than I always thought - I was under the impression "designer drug" was a term generated by the media some time ago which referred to anything man made - LSD, MDMA, etc. Things like mushrooms, weed, mescaline and whatnot were considered... Well... drugs.
Nice work.
:)
 
But beware of bootleg knockoffs. Remember, you can spot a fake Rolex because the second hand will click rather than sweep smoothly...
 
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