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NEWS: Dec 13th 03 - The Economist - E Commerce (2c-i related)

C

CynaKill

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Came across this in reading and thought it might interest some... I think the last paragraph is most pertinent..

Illegal drugs

E commerce

Dec 11th 2003
From The Economist print edition

Why it's so difficult to launch a new illegal drug

THIS summer, a small white pill appeared in nightclubs and at music festivals. It looked like Ecstasy, but as the £10 price tag hinted, it was something else: 2C-I, a newer and more potent hallucinogen. Psychonauts (early adopters, in square-speak) quickly seized on the drug, and others are expected to follow. In October, the National Criminal Intelligence Service alerted police forces to a rising threat. Perhaps more significantly, Mixmag, a clubbers' magazine, pronounced 2C-I “a national mash-up waiting to happen”.

The timing is certainly fortuitous. Boredom and rising tolerance have done for Ecstasy, the 1990s club drug of choice, what stern warnings could not do. Last week, a Home Office survey found that only 2.6% of 16 to 24-year-olds had used it in the past month; a year ago, 3.6% had.

The Home Office posts information on tackling drugs. Erowid, an online drugs-information site, posts information on 2C-I. See also the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

Worse, from the dealers' point of view, prices of Ecstasy tablets have fallen from more than £20 in the late 1980s to £4 or less today. Profit margins have shrunk to as little as a pound a pill, which hardly justifies the opprobrium and long prison sentences that go with the trade. Mat Southwell, of the Dance Drugs Alliance, a hedonists' advocacy group, says that many dealers now see Ecstasy as a means of keeping customers, nothing more. Some have begun to push cocaine, although that is a paraphernalia-filled business unsuited to the club market. Dealers would prefer something that is both easy to take and profitable, which is where the new pills come in.

In some ways, the drug market would seem to favour new entrants like 2C-I. Manufacturing know-how is widely available, thanks in part to a Californian chemist, Alexander Shulgin, who puts new recipes into the public domain, together with tasting notes (“my conversations were incredibly clear and insightful,” he says of his 2C-I experiment). Fierce competition among producers, importers and dealers means that products can be brought to market cheaply. And there are armies of early adopters to spread the word.

The problem, as with all illicit products, is quality control. When Ecstasy first appeared, it was branded with symbols which inspired some trust. But factories soon began putting the same symbols on amphetamines and caffeine tablets. Pill-poppers have responded to this problem partly by putting faith in dealers (not always a reliable source of information), and partly by lowering expectations. James Fitchett, a Nottingham marketing expert, says that teenage Ecstasy users will sooner concoct personal explanations for bad experiences than blame a beloved product.

All of which explains why new drugs are slow to catch on, and slow to be discarded. The successful ones are valued not so much for their chemical properties, but for their associations with new ways of going out. For a new product to succeed, it will need amenable venues, distinctive fashions, and new music—preferably stuff that outsiders find intolerable.
Click to expand...
 
Popularity pushed by profits - lambs to the slaughter?

Profit motivated popularity; our lives are ever more in their hands.......

From Mixmag Nov 2003

From delears, too, 2C-i couldn't have come any sooner. Dino, 25, from Liverpool, used to sell pills to friends for years before the 1 pound [currency] pill priced him out of the market.

"I just wasn't making any money knocking pills out. If you didn't sell them dirt cheap, you'd just get undercut by someone else. And risking jail for a few quid quid isn't worth it.

To make money Dino started selling coke. Buying an ounce for *00 and selling 28 grams for ** a gram means a profit of ***. He'd have needed to flog more than 800 pills to come even close to that amount.

But not everyone can afford coke. 2C-i is the middle ground- more expensive than pills, but cheap enough to get nailed on without worrying about waking up with an empty bank balance he next day.

It's [2C-I]the drug that dealers want to sell and clubbers, seeking out something new, want to buy......
Click to expand...

Paragraphing added. Colour added to highlight, and indicate removal if prices (deemed unnecessary); p_d]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timmmmmy said
*waits for backlash*
Click to expand...

You got it baby.....


Co_oKie_AnaLYsT; please advise your friends and anyone else using 2C compounds to NEVER insufflate (snort) them. Many of this class of compounds, including 2C-I, have the potential to cause pulmonary edema, and have been implicated in several deaths.
 
Why is it that in Australia we still have to fork out half a weeks pay for a good night out :p

What is it that drives prices up so high here?
 
res said:
Why is it that in Australia we still have to fork out half a weeks pay for a good night out :p

What is it that drives prices up so high here?
Click to expand...

A few things I would guess.

- Economy of scale and the markup. In the UK, the per pill markup for the street dealer is much less. They could also coneivably move around 100 + per night. The market here is smaller so dealers need a higher markup to make any money.

It's a catch 22, because they have to charge that much or they wouldn't make enough money...but because they charge that much they won't sell as many.

- We'll pay the price. Why would people bother charging less when they don't have to?

- More middle men perhaps? No real idea on this one, but it's possible they need to go through an extra stage or 2 here or to get here.
 
another article saying ecstacy is going out of fashion........

i really cant see how 2c-i could replace pills, cos theyre very different. the only way i could see it used as a club drug is cos u can regulate ur doses a lot better than acid, and therefore u can know how much u will trip.

mind u, i've never had 2c-i in pill form, just measured up caps from the powder.
 
I agree with the points about people getting sick of ecstasy. I too am sick of pills, have been double dumping quite a bit and not even getting anywhere near the same effect

but

Just tried the new batch of clovers/clubs , white with grey specks, and let me say it fucked me!! Such a nice happy feeling , lovey and felt mad
 
It is no doubt that research chemicals are becoming more popular, and therefore more idiots are taking substances they no nothing about. With these kinds of chemicals being sold in pills, it is difficult to know what you are taking unless you have access to a GCMS or are experienced with a wide range of pure research chemicals and would be able to guess what it is based on prior experience. In addition to not knowing what chemical is in the pill, it is unknown what dose is in the pill, so any kind of hallucinogenic pill should only be taken one at a time and hope the manufacturer put one dose in per pill or less. From there you could increase your dose based on your first initial experience.

The MDMA dose is very high at 100mg [+/- 20mg usually] and there is little danger of overdose by having multiple pills (also due to MDMA's LD50). Research chemicals are different, when taking multiple pills it can increase the experience very sharply and has the potential to cause problems beyond a bad trip. This is especially real when people take them expecting them to be MDMA.
 
^^^

so so true. thats even more cause for concern.
its just like the case with the K pills....why do ppl buy them, supporting the market for dodgy crap which we dont know the contents of?
and now with 2C-I in pill form, ppl who dont know how to get hold of the "pure" stuff will buy these pills not knowing how much is in them....leaving huge potential for nasty mess.

and the sad thing is......what can we do about it all?
 
If I knew _where_ to buy this chemical I would. But I don't, and can't. [content removed; p_d]So this leaves me in a bind, do I accept the pill the dodgy guy down the road wants to sell me and potentially have a great night, or go to a club straight as fuck.

This is the dilemma most people face and is the main reason behind the generally lower quality of drugs in Australia

[EDIT: no need to say such things res...p:d]
 
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a good article to read, but i'm stumped as to why it was printed in the economist! its normally such a conservative publication, and normally involved in a lot more higher thinking.. unless the above is just an extract, the article really lowers the quality of the economist.
where's the economics in it? :D
 
ummm.. Price of pills falling, therefore greater demand... No worth for dealers, therefore supply falls. Therefore Equilibrium.. therefore makes economic sense.

The reason they keep selling them at an almost perfectly competitive market, is so it can be used as a method of selling other drugs... an add on if you will
 
^^ A little off topic (and just to be a pain), but how can equillibrium exist without consumer knowledge? Most consumers know next to nothing about MDMA, and even producers know nothing much about 2C-I... :)
 
He refers to it in microeconomic sense - equilibrium occurs in a market when the price balances the plans of buyers and sellers - when opposing forces balance each other. It is when the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied. Consumer knowledge does have some bearing on this, as it may influence demand. E.g. If 2C-I is widely portrayed as a dangerous substance then demand may fall. However the market system does not rely on consumers having a consummate knowledge of the relevant product...
 
there is also a requirement for freely floating prices, which is almost nonexistant. prices are based on history mainly and through that, path dependancy, and to some degree hysterisis. the political economist in me is coming out.

my general point was, that the article hardly touched on the economics of the situation, and i generally expect more when reading the economist.
also, microeconomics is primarily based on to a degree, free trade. illegal products are hardly free trade are they! :p
equilibrium in the microeconomic sense does depend on exact consumer knowledge.. without it, the 'true equilibrium' is never reached.
a price may be close, but can never be exactly equilibrium.
 
That's right CynaKill - consumer knowledge may influence the level of demand for a product. And if people know five eighths of fuck all about 2C-I, what does that say about demand for it? It says that demand is most likely obscured by that lack of knowledge, causing it (diagramatically) to intersect the supply curve at a point which doesn't reflect equililbrium.

I know that a market system does not rely on consumer knowledge, but as Jubas once taught me... A lack of it can destroy the otherwise unquestioned axiom that supply/demand = equilibrium, and there's nothing more to it.

Anyway, enough microeconomic theory... Bring back the 2C-I related stuff :)

*steers thread back on topic*
 
Hehehe yeah Apollo, but you're forgetting that often the less someone knows about a drug (whether because the information is scarce because the drug is 'rare', or because they have only just heard about it), the more they want it because the novelty or rarity of the drug makes it extremely desirable to a certain kind of drug user (niche market?). Knowing nothing about the drug or how it will affect one may not tarnish the curiosity which creates a demand, and people can be talked into paying a very high price for something they know little about. They are essentially at the seller's mercy - paying any asked price, and being given in return a dose chosen by someone else and whatever information the seller can be bothered to pass on in the duration of the transaction. Thereafter, I guess only the drug experience itself and the perceived value for money will determine future demand and/or the expansion of the niche market.

BigTrancer :)
 
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