It’s the same wolf, but with a different skin. A strategy used by cooks of synthetic (laboratory) drugs that add new products to these substances to evade controls and criminal prosecution. Energy Control warns from Catalonia of the emergence on the market of one of these substances, cataloged on the menu of this NGO as “new drugs”. And all thanks to a project that sets up stands at festivals and leisure spots to offer young people the possibility of analyzing the substances they take orally, snort or inject. In this case, this analysis was done in one of those positions set up at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, where Energy Control was present for the first time. A young man showed up with a square pink pill that he claimed he had just bought. The drug dealer told him it was MDMA (molly or ecstasy), but thanks to that analysis, that consumer discovered that he had been given a scam. That pill – a test was carried out on site – contained another substance, which, although it is already known in Spain, is now worrying due to the increase in its traffic, as Mireia Ventura, director of the Energy Control analysis service, warns.
They sold that young man 4-CMC, another psychostimulant drug different from MDMA, with a similar effect, but with yet unknown effects on the body. Therein lies the risk and the problem. There has not been time to analyze the health damage of ingesting that substance. And even less so if it is mixed with other drugs.
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The new substance is called 4-CMC and thanks to Energy Control its sale is confirmed, deceiving the consumer
Energy Control reveals that this new substance, also known as clephedrone or 4-chloromethcathinone, belongs to the family of synthetic cathinones. Its existence was already known, but now (Primavera Sound is the latest example) an increase in the supply of this unknown drug, due to its consequences, is detected.
What are we talking about? “4-CMC is a psychostimulant from the cathinone family recently added to the list of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and which is especially widespread in Europe,” reports Energy Control. This drug appeared on the market for the first time in 2014, but its trafficking had been very residual to date.
This drug, taken orally, takes between 20 and 60 minutes to take effect, which is reduced to three minutes if it is snorted. Its effects usually last between two and four hours. Users notice, as with other drugs in the cathinone family, an increase in euphoria and energy, greater sociability and sexual potency, as well as visual and auditory hallucinations. All this has already been investigated. But what is not known, Mireia Ventura insists, “are the adverse effects that ingestion of that substance can cause.” There are no studies. It can be ventured that the consumer may suffer, as occurs with other stimulants, insomnia, anxiety, elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, peripheral vasoconstriction, bruxism, dilated pupils, sweating, elevated temperature…
These are all assumptions and nothing has yet been written about the effects of long-term consumption or the mixture of other substances. It is, therefore, a journey with an unknown end.
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