DMT Dimethyltryptamine

Found in minute quantities in certain Amazonian plants and in the human brain. Smoked, the effects are nearly instantaneous and very strange. "The closest you'll get to experiencing death bar actually dying" as one user put it.

Dose 2-60mg
Duration Less than 10 minutes
Legal status Class A
Price £100 a gram on the street

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5-Meo-DMT Methoxydimethyltryptamine

A more powerful sister compound of DMT, occurring naturally in the venom of the Bufo alvarius toad but generally smoked in synthesised form. Not uncommon for those who take large amounts to suffer psychological and emotional difficulties for weeks afterwards.

Dose 1-20mg (smaller than a grain of salt)
Duration 5-20 minutes
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $175 (about £90) a gram

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2C-I (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenethylamine)

Most likely candidate for the coveted title "the next ecstasy".

Powerful psychedelic stimulant described as a cross between MDMA and LSD but with much gentler side-effects. Already appearing in pill form on the UK dance scene.

Dose 10-25mg
Duration 5-8 hours
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $299 a gram web price; £10 a pill on the street

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2C-T-2 (2,5-dimethyoxy-4-ethylthiophenethylamine)

Respected psychedelic, from the same phenethylamine family as MDMA and mescaline.

Noted for its warmth and "outrageous visuals".

Dose 10-25mg
Duration 5-8 hours
Legal status Class A but available to buy on the internet
Price $299 a gram web price; £10 a pill on the street

New drugs are powerful synthetic psychedelics from the same chemical families as LSD, magic mushrooms and mescaline. They are too new to have enticing street names; instead their lengthy chemical names are shortened to abbreviations such as 2C-I, 4-HO-DiPT, and 5-Meo-DMT. Unlike ecstasy, methamphetamine or other synthetic recreational drugs, the new compounds are not made in illicit factories or backroom kitchen laboratories. Instead, "research chemicals", as they are euphemistically known, are synthesised by commercial labs, often based in the US, which openly sell their products on the internet.

The rapid growth in the transatlantic online trade in such chemicals has been fuelled by international differences over legality. While Britain has outlawed all of these drugs - under an amendment to the Misuse Of Drugs Act in February 2002 - they remain legal in most other countries, including the majority of EU member states. Even in the US, despite some of the most draconian anti-drug laws in the world, the bulk of research chemicals are legal to manufacture, sell, possess and consume.

With ecstasy dropping in price and popularity, users and dealers in this country are looking further afield to obtain new highs. A recent Home Office survey found that ecstasy use had dropped 21% in the last year. The street price had also dropped to an all time low of £2-£3 a pill.

But while most research chemicals are too psychedelically powerful to make it as club drugs, one, 2C-I, is rapidly gaining popularity in this country as a dance drug, thanks to some similarities in effect to MDMA, the main ingredient of ecstasy. More than 125 pills of the drug were seized by police last year, including 65 at the Glastonbury festival, and some London dealers are offering it for £10 a tablet.

Methamphetamine can be cooked up using a handful of household chemicals, but byproducts can include toxic waste in the local water supply, fires and explosions.

Globally, users are said to outnumber those of heroin and cocaine combined, but its prevalence in the UK is still a matter of some debate.

The UK is further removed from the suspected "meth labs" of Mexico and south-east Asia, than Australia and the rural US, where methamphetamine use is said to have reached epidemic proportions.

Among the new flavors are strawberry, known as "Strawberry Quick," chocolate, cola and other sodas, Robertson said. One agent reported a red methamphetamine that had been marketed as a powdered form of an energy drink, he said.

A patrol officer who stopped a car on Feb. 13 in a rural area of Greene County, Mo., seized a bag of "strawberry meth" from a female passenger, says Capt. Randy Gibson of the Greene County Sheriff's Department. The seized drug had a slight strawberry smell to it, he said.

Greene County deputies have seized colored meth before, Gibson says. Several years ago, blue methamphetamine, known as "Smurf dope" circulated in the area, Gibson said.

"It was nothing more than one of the local meth cooks taking a great deal of pride in his purity," Gibson says. "He ground up blue chalk to color it so he could market it as his."

Carson City, Nev., Undersheriff Steve Albertson says dealers often try to make their meth distinctive with color or a catchy name as a way to brand it. "Then they'll spread the word that this meth, whatever color it is, is the best kind of meth there is," he said.

The appearance of "Strawberry Quick" in Greene County came less than two weeks after the Nevada

The sale of some cold remedies will be restricted to one small pack per customer in Britain to prevent gangs making the crack-like drug, crystal meth.


Government medical advisors said on Wednesday that large packs of decongestants containing the chemicals ephedrine and pseudoephedrine would be withdrawn from sale.

They would be replaced by packs of 12 or 24 tablets containing a total of 720 mg of the drugs.

The move follows police concerns that criminals are using the ingredients to manufacture methylamphetamine – crystal meth – in illegal laboratories.

Although use of the drug is low in Britain, the government is anxious to prevent the problem growing to the serious levels seen elsewhere.

However, the medicines will remain on sale at pharmacies and not become prescription-only, as had been suggested in a consultation which ended in June.

Drugs manufacturers, who had lobbied against prescription-only sales, welcomed the new restrictions.

"This is a sensible and proportionate approach to a problem that is still almost non-existent in this country, but one we all want to avoid," said Sheila Kelly, executive director of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain (PAGB).

There has been only known case – on the Isle of Wight – of an illegal crystal meth lab in Britain using pharmacy products, the PAGB says.

The restriction will affect around one in 10 cold remedies sold in Britain, including versions of Actifed, Benylin, Lemsip, Meltus and Sudafed.

All are already only sold in chemists and are kept behind the counter.

The smaller pack sizes would be sufficient for around three days' treatment, the PAGB said.

Most people only need to take decongestants for one or two days, it added.

A government advisory body will monitor the restrictions for the next two years to check they are working.

It will retain the option to recommend moving the medicines to prescription sale if the measures do not reduce the risk of illegal crystal meth manufacture.

Methamphetamine can be cooked up using a handful of household chemicals, but byproducts can include toxic waste in the local water supply, fires and explosions.
Sold as crystals, pills or powder, it can be smoked, swallowed or injected and is said to be highly addictive.

Globally, users are said to outnumber those of heroin and cocaine combined.

Seven years in jail and an unlimited fine, while dealers could be jailed for life.
Sends the wrong message to teenage drug users
heavy use can lead to paranoia, kidney failure, violence, internal bleeding and less inhibited sexual behaviour.

Crystal is made of highly volatile, toxic substances (based on such chemical "precursors" as methylamine and amyl amine) that are melded in differing combinations, forming what some have described as a "mix of laundry detergent and lighter fluid."

The mixes are never exactly the same, but basic types are a rough yellow substance called Hydro and a smooth white blend called Glass. Half a gram costs around £25 and a £15 hit would probably keep you going for a few days.

The drug can either be snorted or injected, or in its crystal form 'ice' smoked in a pipe, and brings on a feeling of exhilaration and a sharpening of focus. Smoking ice results in an instantaneous dose of almost pure drug to the brain, giving a huge rush followed by a feeling of euphoria for anything from 2-16 hours.

For some this could result in obsessive cleaning or tidying, but for many the biggest bonus is the sense of sexual liberation which can result in mad, abandoned sex for hours - sometimes days - on end.