good bump, MGS. I am SICK AND TIRED of explaining to people why that little microdot or pill is NOT mescaline or anything else similarly exotic.
I've seen a lot of people selling the famous brown microdots as mescaline, for $10 per dot. I delight in raining on their parade by telling them (and their customers) that the microdots were really acid, and 50-60 mics per dot. People, even the hapless customers who I was trying to save from a ripoff, wouldn't believe me.
One debate I've gotten into is particularly memorable. While at a festival, I talked to this one guy, who seemed to be more of a real "head" and less of a piece of gutter punk tour trash, for 15 minutes giving chemical structures, dosages, and REFERENCES for all that shit. A sample of our conversation:
Me: "That microdot is not mescaline, mescaline's threshold dose is around 200 mg and that dot is not nearly big enough to fit it in."
Guy: "Well it's not acid, I know, I've done a lot of acid and it feels different."
Me: "I just told you that it is physically impossible for it to be mescaline."
Guy: "Well then it's probably a different kind of mescaline, like 2C-B."
Me: "First of all, 2C-B isn't mescaline. It isn't a kind of mescaline. It's got a different substitution pattern than mescaline; positions 2,4,5 on the benzene ring rather than 3,4,5. Second of all, that microdot is too small to fit an active dose of 2C-B. How long do those dots last?"
Guy: "8 hours, if you take a lot, then even longer"
Me: "2C-B lasts 4-6 hours. The peak is no longer than 4 hours"
Guy: "You've got your information wrong. When I did 2C-B, it was a pretty heavy trip for 6-8 hours."
Me: "Well then it wasn't 2C-B. Take a look at PiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin, the inventor of 2C-B; even if you're a lightweight like he is, its not going to last that long."
Guy: "It was some other kind of mescaline then."
Me: "mescaline is mescaline. There is one chemical structure: 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine. What you had then was probably acid, and what you have right now is definitely acid. I know, because I've had it, and I go to school out in California which is where these microdots are coming from. Out west, people acknowledge that they're acid."
Guy: "Well I know it wasn't acid, it felt different from regular acid."
Me: "Maybe its just cleaner than the shit you've been getting around here."
Guy: "It didn't give me tension in my spine at all, and you know all acid does that."
Me: "…"
Guy: "I know its mescaline, I've done mescaline, or some kind of mescaline before, and that's what it feels like. It doesn't feel like acid."
Me: "OK, believe whatever you want to believe, but its not true. Just don't rip people off by selling them half a hit of acid for $10."
Guy: "It's not acid."
/me looks at the 500 mg gelcap of pure synthetic mescaline in my hand and laughs maniacally at willfully ignorant people like "Guy" in the above dialogue.