In Unison

Getting High Legal Style

By staceyk | Published Sunday, 11 October, 2009 | 6 Comments

Getting high has taken on a whole new meaning since the 1960s when it meant smoking pot or taking acid, now the market is flooded with all sorts of drugs to alter your mind, and the funny thing is, many of them are legal as Stacey Knott discovers.

Legal Smoking

If you want to smoke legally for a high, there is an assortment of herbal smokes from places like Cosmic Corner.

The controversial Mexican Tripping Weed or salvia is one of these. It is a type of sage used for thousands of years in Mexican Indian rituals, giving its users hallucinogenic effects, like taking LSD or magic mushrooms.

Tim* tried it once with a group of friends and found the experience horrible, he smoked the substance through a pipe with a group of close friends.

“It’s really, really intense hallucinations, we started seeing and feeling things too. I put my arms up and felt like a thunderbird, like my arms were attached to the roof.”

Another person in the group got really paranoid and thought all his friends were trying to kill him; he shut himself in his room claiming he could see the devil.

Tim does not recommend the substance to anyone else “it’s not a drug you can have fun with,” he says.

Chrisana* also did salvia and tried to jump off a second story balcony. “I had to be physically restrained and ended up with black and yellow bruising all over my butt and thighs,” she recalls.

There is other less intense “synthetic pot” available to buy that can last about an hour and produce similar effects as smoking marijuana would, such as Krypto Bud, or other herbs to sedate, energise or relax.

Party Pills

Scott Mesarich from the legal highs company Wicked Habits says legal smoking herbs have become popular since BZP based party pills were banned in April last year.

Party pills used to be all the rage about four years ago when they were based on a chemical called Benzylpiperazine –BZP for short but from April 1 last year BZP was made a class C drug, making it illegal.

Those who did dabble in BZP when it was legal will probably know what the effects were like. It would give users incredible levels of energy, but it was the after effects that were horrendous, especially if you mixed BZP with booze. The day after taking it you would feel like you were hit by a bus, feeling hopeless, nauseous and moody and suffer bad headaches to top it off.

Since those days a whole new breed of pills have cropped up that are BZP-free, however they are not nearly as popular as BZP was and might have some of the same bad effects. The new products on the market are based on an assortment of chemicals and herbal extracts, however in April last year, an urgent investigation into new non-BZP party pills prompted watchdogs to demand tougher controls around their sale after reports came out that they were making some people violently ill with vomiting and headaches.

Mesarich says sales of BZP based party pills used to make up about 60 percent of suppliers’ business, now they are BZP free it has dropped to about 10 percent.

The old BZP pills were not regulated, neither are their replacements, and not much is known about what is in them, or what their effects are, long or short term. No sellers or manufacturers of the new party pills would answer email or phone requests for information on their products for this feature, and health authorities were unable to supply much information on them, because they say they do not have much to go on. It seems things have not changed since last year when the New Zealand Drug Foundation released a statement saying it was concerned about the lack of information about the pills, and the effects they could have on ones’ health. The Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said the introduction of BZP-free party pills was the same “risky situation” as when BZP was first introduced. “We don’t know what’s in them, we don’t know their effects and so we aren’t able to provide good health and safety advice to consumers. We cannot rely on the industry to provide unbiased information,” he says. “These new products have zero regulations over them. This means they can be sold from anywhere, including the corner dairy, to anyone, including people under 18 years old. There is no requirement for the products to have health and safety labelling, so consumers won’t have a clue what’s in them or their possible health effects. Once more, the law is lagging behind what is happening in the marketplace.”

Drael* a psychology major graduate, with a strong interest in neurobiology/pharmacology also has a strong interest in legal and illegal drugs. He is currently looking into developing his own party pills, and has tried about 12 different sorts of the new party pills. He says the ones on the market currently are based almost entirely on weight loss and bodybuilding products developed in the USA, with slightly higher doses of geranamin, which is also known as dmaa, an extract of the geranium plant.

“They are generally weaker and different from BZP. There is some ‘push’ in some of the products, but generally not much. Geranamine itself doesn’t give ‘push’ (the feeling you have to move or do something). It does however give stamina, if indeed you do move; you can do so for longer without fatigue. It is very smooth as such, and not edgy, so well tolerated generally. Some people who wouldn’t have liked BZP, will like these for that reason and also its mildness. It enhances music appreciation a little, and also feels a little physically relaxing if anything, some people say it makes them a little more social.”

He says they give mild but pleasant effects, but do not really compare to BZP or illegal drugs.

“Personally I’d quite like them to be a bit stronger, but I think at this level of effect and safety, no one can much argue against them being legal.”

He says they go well with a bit of alcohol, but does not recommend taking more than the recommended dose of the party pills because they will make you physically sick if you do.

Because I was not willing to relive my party-pills days, I sent out a message to all my friends asking for their experiences of BZP-free party pills. One friend says she gives them two thumbs up. “Just like strong coffee, with that cool ‘I just took drugs warm’ fuzz,” and with no bad after effects, she says.

Rory*, a student says he tried the BZP-free party pills at a conference last year.

“Basically I just became really distracted and kept grinding my teeth and grimacing and licking my lips and stuff, which must have been pretty disconcerting for anyone talking to me. Afterwards I felt terrible and couldn't get to sleep and had kind of a paranoid buzz when I went to board my flight home.”

Another friend, Astrid* claimed they made her lactate and eat holes in her own fingers.

Robin* took them recently after a friend snuck off to Cosmic Corner to pick some up. He does not recall what they were as he says he was drunk at the time of taking them.

“It just had a subtle effect, just feeling a little more awake then I crashed at 4am.”

But the next day’s effects were more profound.

“I woke up and felt my heart racing.”

He had heart fluttering through the day and felt tired and light-headed for the rest of the day, it was unlike a normal hangover which Robin says he can usually just power through.

Energy Shots

Another way to get a legal buzz from over the counter is energy shots, they are fairly new on the market and all the major drink companies have released their own versions of them.

Energy shots are a concentrated version of energy drinks like Red Bull; they contain more caffeine and are being sold as dietary supplements which means there is no regulation on how big a hit they can contain. In the 60ml shot of NOS I tried there was 250mg of caffeine, that’s like two coffees but as well as this there was 500mg of taurine.

I was originally going to try six shots all up, but only got halfway through.

I took NOS, first while at work which had horrible effects, my heart beat too fast, I felt sick, and the burst of energy was distracting and hindering.

It upset my stomach and my lunch break was wasted lying on a couch feeling sorry for myself. The next weekend I took round two, at a party while drinking wine. It made me more talkative and energetic than usual, but made me crash in a big way on my friend’s couch later that night, usually I can refrain from falling asleep at parties, so I can put entire blame on this shot. I took the last shot a few days later before going for a run. Usually I’m pretty good at running and can last about 40 minutes; this was definitely not the case. After taking the shot my heart was beating too fast before getting out the door, and when I started running I felt light-headed and queasy, I ended up walking around the block, feeling dazed before I went back to my house and had to lie on the floor to ease my confused brain.

These few experiences put me off trying any other brands, so I called in a group of volunteers to finish it off got me.

Craig* was one of them and felt that the more he took, the less impact they had. He tried Demon and NOS, and found Demon to be the better of the two.

He did not think they gave him any more energy when playing sports, but affected his sleep. “I wasn’t able to get to sleep as easy and I woke up tired, it was not a deep sleep.” When drinking, he found alcohol hit him faster, but the shots had little effect on him when he was studying. He says they taste like a poorly mixed Raro, and would not recommend the drinks.

Nick* was also part of the energy shot experiment; he tried out the Red Bull shots as well as Six-Hour-Power.

He tried the Red Bull at a party, while studying and also when baby sitting.

” I would have to say it failed me terribly considering I am a devoted fan of their drink, its more condensed supposedly more powerful formula is nothing but a cheap imitation of the drink, during the party I fell asleep, while babysitting the kids I fell asleep and while studying I again fell asleep.

“If you are depending on this shot to deliver energy I would strongly suggest you bypass this product when you see it on the shelves.”

He used the same settings for the Six-Hour-Power shots which had better effects.

“It was the best studying I have done in a fair while and was one of my best performances partying wise too. In my honest opinion this product is the best if you are looking for a superior energy boost. A word of caution, sustainability is not its strength after the fifth hour or sometimes the fourth hour I experienced a slump which sometimes left me wanting more which of course I did unfortunately it does come with a side of no sleep for two days. If you want short bursts of energy great, if you want no sleep for the next couple of days take twice the recommended dose,” he jokes.

Toni* tried Demon and NOS, she had the same reaction as me for the NOS.

“I felt really sick and had to go and eat something, the packaging is horrible and it smelt gross,” she says.

She took a NOS while walking home and it make her light-headed.

However the Demon drink had a better effect making her energetic and chatty.

The day after taking them she says she was more tired than usual.

So Many Choices

That seems to be a common theme over all these legal highs, while there are so many more legal highs not delved into here, like sugar, caffeine, alcohol and other plant derivatives, the thing they all have in common is they will have some bad side effects.

If you eat too much sugar, you might get diabetes or obese, too much caffeine can stop you from sleeping, alcohol can destroy your liver, energy shots can make your heart beat too fast and cause a lack of sleep and it seems party pills do the same, while even legal weeds can cause you to do fatal things.

So of course have fun out there party fiends, feel free to experiment because at least with these you can’t get arrested, but if you are reaching for the Mexican Tripping Weed over the counter, or think six shots of NOS is going to be fun, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

*last names withheld