You got your drugs in my candy!

March 27, 2007 9:22 PM

Meth Candy! The media are reporting that meth is being mixed with candy to "make it more appealing to younger users". But drug candy is not new, although it's more likely accidentally given to kids, or maybe it's mostly speculation , hysteria and urban legends? Of course, there's always candy flipping, or chocolate pills. Just remember that chocolate is not an antidepressant.
posted by Joakim Ziegler (70 comments total)

MORAL PANIC EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!
posted by delmoi at 9:24 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also placebos have something like a 60% effectiveness for curing depression, so if you believed that chocolate could cure depression, then there is a good chance that it could.
posted by delmoi at 9:25 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Taking meth makes people post kneejerk responses based on chance mental associations to the post's subject matter to a thread before reading the links.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:27 PM on March 27, 2007

The media are reporting that meth is being mixed with candy to "make it more appealing to younger users".

Make which more appealing to young users? The meth or the candy?
posted by Anything at 9:31 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

Make which more appealing to young users? The meth or the candy?

The media!
posted by phaedon at 9:33 PM on March 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

Make which more appealing to young users? The meth or the candy?

Both, probably. Win/win situation!
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:35 PM on March 27, 2007

See also: adderall. "It helps me keep focussed on the task at hand" (cleaning the gunge between the bathroom tiles for 4 hours, muttering 'dirty dirty dirty' all the while).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:44 PM on March 27, 2007

Also: mmmmm, candy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:44 PM on March 27, 2007

Taking meth makes people post kneejerk responses based on chance mental associations to the post's subject matter to a thread before reading the links.

What important fact would be missed by commenting on the FPP text rather then the nbc11 article. People are mixing meth with candy. I care because?
posted by delmoi at 9:45 PM on March 27, 2007

I think the real question is, which is worse for your teeth?
posted by Rangeboy at 9:48 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

In related news -- Man chronicles his death by meth use.
posted by ericb at 9:49 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm sure they're not mixing meth with candy. More likely they're just dripping some artificial flavoring into it. People often did that after drying out ketamine bottles to get the crystals, because it has a bitter drip. Usually they used cherry flavoring which turned it a bright pink.

Err, so I've heard.
posted by empath at 9:51 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

delmoi: I care because?

That's pretty much the philosophical underpinning of half your comments. Thanks for coming clean in a crack thread.
posted by phaedon at 9:53 PM on March 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

See also: adderall. "It helps me keep focussed on the task at hand"

Ty Pennington *shudder*

The active ingredient in ADDERALL XR has been used medically for nearly 70 years.²

but what is it? According to this its: Dextroamphetamine, Saccharate, Amphetamine Aspartate, Monohydrate Dextroamphetamine Sulfate, and USP Amphetamine Sulfate USP. Not all Amphetamines are the same, obviously. But while Adderall doesn't contain methamphetamine, Meth is FDA approved to treat hyperactivity in children and has been for decades. I don't know if it's still used, though.

That said, I would bet that most bath-tub Meth is very harmful for you, containing a lot of impurities
posted by delmoi at 9:55 PM on March 27, 2007

Well it's nice to see someone is thinking of the children.
posted by furtive at 9:57 PM on March 27, 2007

That's pretty much the philosophical underpinning of half your comments. Thanks for coming clean in a crack thread. -- phaedon

Okay, well why do you care that people are making Meth that tastes like candy?

Also, what's up with calling Meth "Crack"? Crack is a form of cocaine.
posted by delmoi at 9:57 PM on March 27, 2007

Okay, well why do you care that people are making Meth that tastes like candy?

Way to decapitate me with the Axe of Hypocrisy. It is, however, one of those I'm glad I'm too old to care about, because I really feel bad for people who are caught up in this shit.
posted by phaedon at 10:05 PM on March 27, 2007

Crack is also a part of my arse - so whats up with calling that cocaine?
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:43 PM on March 27, 2007

As someone who's tried meth, I've got to say: that must be a really, really strong candy flavor they're adding. Because that stuff tastes worse than dogshit, and I don't think adding fruit sprinkles to dogshit is going to make it go down any easier.

My guess is it's a marketing thing rather than a flavor thing, but that doesn't make a huge amount of sense, because meth isn't really a buyer's market kind of drug -- meaning that it's not something with streetcorner dealers competing for your entertainment dollar. Although that could have changed in the decade since I tried it.

A really interesting book about the marketing of crack happens to be From Pieces to Weight, 50 Cent's autobiography. Crack marketing is done almost entirely by the color of stopper or shape of the vial.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:45 PM on March 27, 2007

Please forgive me for waiting for confirmation of the pink, fluffy, sweetened meth candy from a source other than a local TV news station. And searching "Strawberry Quik" and meth in Missouri don't turn up much beyond a blog post which claims to have heard about "flavored meth from Mexican super labs" on the radio that morning. The Google results have more noise, but nothing else to back up the claim that fruity sweet colored meth has been confiscated in 8 states.

I also can't imagine anyone fucking with the recipe by cutting it with Jello, like "addictive-disease expert Dr. Sean O'Hara" says, or cooking it with chocolate. That just seems really ridiculous.
posted by mediareport at 10:58 PM on March 27, 2007

Oh, and "the media are reporting" is a pretty hysterical way of saying "one local TV news station is reporting."
posted by mediareport at 10:59 PM on March 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

Seems to me they're talking about "candied" meth and not "meth candy"... but anyway... yeah, ridiculous that media machine is. Goddamned ridiculous.
posted by sunshinesky at 11:09 PM on March 27, 2007

Sweet!
posted by inconsequentialist at 11:10 PM on March 27, 2007

Mexican Superlabs? First Captain America dies, now Mexico is breeding supersoldiers?
posted by klangklangston at 11:13 PM on March 27, 2007

But when can I get my meth flavored to taste like cocaine?
posted by Justinian at 11:21 PM on March 27, 2007

Do the kids take the meth candy before, after or during their rainbow parties?
posted by maxwelton at 11:22 PM on March 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

"candied" meth

Oh, great. I just know someone's going to get me a methcake for Christmas.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:26 PM on March 27, 2007

It's always nice to be reminded that behind every meth lab, there's a meth scientist, hard at work.
posted by ph00dz at 11:30 PM on March 27, 2007 [4 favorites]

Hey kids, I saw just this last month: a tweener girl wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word "tweaker" on it, in glitter no less. I asked her if she was a tweaker, and she said yes. I asked what tweaker meant to her and she said, "tweakers are cool." I went to my holy crap place and rocked back and forth for a while, well at least in my mind, and then asked her if she knew that a "tweaker" was a person who was strung out on some kind of drug and she said that no I was WRONG, WRONG.

I don't want y'all to think to badly about ol' Belle, but I have tweaked my share and holy crap, when a 12 year old who has obviously not used tells me that tweaking is cool, I know the world has shifted just a little too far. They don't need to sell the candy because it is already sold.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 11:32 PM on March 27, 2007 [5 favorites]

Oh, and "the media are reporting" is a pretty hysterical way of saying "one local TV news station is reporting."
posted by mediareport at 1:59 AM on March 28 [+]
[!]

eponysterical?
posted by Falconetti at 11:36 PM on March 27, 2007

This is fucked up. Too much candy rots your teeth.
posted by Falconetti at 11:38 PM on March 27, 2007

I suppose we should expect a story on the LSD-enhanced "blue star tattoos" next. Sometimes I guess the media runs out of hysteria to give us about drugs. Or maybe they run out of stories. I can totally see that conversation:

Editor: Hey, so what have you got?
Newsguy: Well, there's that tornado-trailer park thing...
Editor: So two hours ago.
Newsguy: We could always make shit up about meth users.
Editor: Brilliant!
posted by avriette at 12:15 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also placebos have something like a 60% effectiveness for curing depression, so if you believed that chocolate could cure depression, then there is a good chance that it could.

But it has to be exceptionally high-quality chocolate. Ordinary chocolate just wouldn't do.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:37 AM on March 28, 2007

Were those "media reports" on before or after the latest episode of "Ow, My Balls!"..?
posted by telstar at 12:40 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Re: media drug scares

Currently making the rounds bigtime in Britain, with the occasional incursion into US media, has been hype about marijuana leading to schizophrenia.

Some of the claims would be amusing if they weren't being taken as truth by consumers: that the latest strains of pot have 20x the active content of the old '70s hippie pot, that smoking it is going to make you go schizoid, and that this wicked, wicked drug goes by the name "skunk."

[rolls eyes]
posted by five fresh fish at 12:44 AM on March 28, 2007

And come to think of it, the Brits also love to cut their weed with tobacco, or cut hash into tobacco. Which is plain disgusting.

But to give it a truly British spin, they take it further: soapbar hash.

Gosh, I wonder why schizophrenia is on the upswing in the UK?
posted by five fresh fish at 12:53 AM on March 28, 2007

God god. Flashback to the late 70's when I was a kid and there were rumours circulating about nefarious milkbar operators putting drugs into milkshakes and selling them to kids to get them hooked.

What the drugs were, where this was happening, and why no-one could explain why "they" were giving away their drugs (or selling $20 milkshakes) - it didn't matter. It stems from the same stupid urban-legend crap perpetuated by people who must have made-up bogey-men because the REAL bogey-men are far too scary.

Proof? Who needs it? My friendsauntscousinescoworkerexhusbanddoctorswife told me so it MUST be true.
posted by ninazer0 at 1:17 AM on March 28, 2007

Soap Bar.
posted by Drexen at 1:55 AM on March 28, 2007

Oh, and "the media are reporting" is a pretty hysterical way of saying "one local TV news station is reporting."

This was on CNN too, but as a video-only story, so I didn't link to it. Check, for instance, Google News.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:16 AM on March 28, 2007

And yes, the moral panic/hysteria angle was what I was going for with the blue star tattoo link and so on in the original post.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:18 AM on March 28, 2007

MEXICAN SUPERLABS
posted by quonsar at 4:26 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of that Penny Arcade podcast where they completely eviscerated a local news article about an epidemic of schoolchildren using their PSPs to "magically" acquire pornography. Yes, the reporter actually said they PSPs "magically" pulled porn "out of thin air." The conclusion, of course, being that the child in question used his PSP to access the internet while at school. They made this into a 800-word scare piece.

Local news is a cesspool of ignorance. The first three minutes are a summary of the actual, relevant headlines of the day, followed by a segment like this, another segment where the "hard-boiled" reporter "exposes" the way the Pizza Hut downtown doesn't give the correct change or some shit like that, a segment that asks "can ______ actually kill you?" and then a fight with the other local network over who has the most awesome weather computer.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:40 AM on March 28, 2007

I did search Google News, Joakim, but the search I used last night was too specific. Sorry, and you're right, the scare looks to be in full swing. For classic hysterical drug coverage, check this gem from the Catoosa County News version of the story:

Ninety-nine percent of the people who try meth become addicted the first time they use it. Of those people, only six to eight percent survive their addiction and make it through successful rehabilitation...

Good lord. Do these people even look at their own copy? How on earth could those numbers be real?
posted by mediareport at 4:55 AM on March 28, 2007

mexican superlabs are putting the family methlab out of business.
posted by geos at 5:01 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

paul erdos: super-mathematician or homeless tweaker.
posted by geos at 5:07 AM on March 28, 2007

flavored meth from Mexican super labs

Any dog that can synthesize meth is pretty fuckin' super, no matter whether it's Mexican or Norwegian.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:19 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mmmm candy flipping....
posted by melt away at 5:51 AM on March 28, 2007

Hey kids, I saw just this last month: a tweener girl wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word "tweaker" on it, in glitter no less. I asked her if she was a tweaker, and she said yes. I asked what tweaker meant to her and she said, "tweakers are cool." I went to my holy crap place and rocked back and forth for a while, well at least in my mind, and then asked her if she knew that a "tweaker" was a person who was strung out on some kind of drug and she said that no I was WRONG, WRONG.

I think kids sometimes appropriate "adult" sounding words without knowing exactly what they mean. I heard like a 12 year old kid call up Loveline thinking that "macking" on a girl meant Kissing her, as opposed to hitting on her.

This is fucked up. Too much candy rots your teeth.

Actually according to Meth Mouth isn't caused by the drug itself, but actually all the sugary soda tweakers like to drink, along with not keeping up on their oral hygiene.

and then a fight with the other local network over who has the most awesome weather computer.

LOL. You should have seen the ads when one of our local networks got a helicopter.
posted by delmoi at 6:33 AM on March 28, 2007

well, you know who else took methamphetamine? ... really!

back in the days, the only way people did it was snort it ... burns like hell, too

that the latest strains of pot have 20x the active content of the old '70s hippie pot

20x, i don't think so ... 5x, yes ... that old 70s hippie pot wasn't that strong ... as an old 70s hippie, i ought to know
posted by pyramid termite at 7:32 AM on March 28, 2007

By the way. Candyflipping? Fantastic

So I've been told.
posted by LMGM at 7:45 AM on March 28, 2007

I think someone mentioned Meth being a prescription drug (I think Class II, same class as cocaine, so technically has less harm and prediction potential than marijuana ...), which is technically true, but try to find a pharmacy that stocks it. Not to mention I've heard anecdotally it costs $115 a month (with the average dose being <5mg/day). Which is incredibly crazy for a drug which can be produced at home for notoriously cheap. Industrial prices should push it down to where packaging costs more than the drug itself.

Though more to the point, drug dealers really need to start packaging things in pill form. Meth has a terrible reputation among rich suburban kids and meth inhalation is pretty trashy looking. They'll do anything in pill form though. I don't know about candy but pills is where it is at. I think an enterprising drug dealer needs to buy a pill press.
posted by geoff. at 8:08 AM on March 28, 2007

paul erdos: super-mathematician or homeless tweaker.

Can't he be both, like the late Earl Warren?
posted by Bort at 9:48 AM on March 28, 2007

Pshaw. It's no Actiq.
posted by oats at 9:52 AM on March 28, 2007

Wasn't Lindsay Lohan rumored to be cutting cocaine with strawberry quick? I just remember that from somewhere.

geoff.: I don't know, but it seems like the rich suburban kids wouldn't be interested in a meth-pill either. Why use meth when you can get cocaine? I realize the two drugs are pretty different. Where cocaine is good for a high, meth is good for working long repetitive hours, or wandering cold streets without needing to eat. Cocaine is a party, but meth is a solution to many problems experienced by low paid long shift workers and homeless teens.

Regarding "meth-candy": That's just foolish. Drugs, as we all know, have the ability to market themselves.
posted by elwoodwiles at 10:02 AM on March 28, 2007

Ninety-nine percent of the people who try meth become addicted the first time they use it.

Cool! I've always wanted to be the top 1% at something.

(Ugly drug, with the worst comedown imaginable. Wouldn't do it again if you paid me.)
posted by jokeefe at 10:32 AM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

re:
God, how I hate the schizophrenia-marijuana link. I'm schizotypal, and my mental state and ability to function in social situations gets worse if I don't smoke up for a few weeks.
posted by tehloki at 11:06 AM on March 28, 2007

I wonder how ADHD kids would be if we got 'em all to smoke a joint in the morning? Might mellow 'em out better than Adderall....
posted by pax digita at 11:46 AM on March 28, 2007

tehloki, I thought schizophrenia has been pretty clearly linked to cannabis in the many studies done on the matter. I'm not up to date on the latest research but I've personally known several stoners who've had schizophrenic episodes attributed to their marijuana use. How it all works is unknown but there is clearly a link, particularly with teenagers. I'm a regular smoker myself btw. I also believe that it can help people with schizophrenia - doesn't mean that it can't also have a negative effect for others. It's a mind alterant, how it alters can vary.
posted by Onanist at 1:01 PM on March 28, 2007

cannabis...marijuana use

Off-topic, but of related interest:

"Bob Barr, who as a Georgia congressman authored a successful amendment that blocked D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana initiative, has switched sides and become a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project."

posted by ericb at 2:00 PM on March 28, 2007

Ninety-nine percent of the people who try meth become addicted the first time they use it.

And this, kids, is why nobody ever believes (or should ever believe) what people tell them about drugs.


THE EVIL DEMON METH IS COMING TO EAT YOUR SOUL.
posted by Justinian at 2:18 PM on March 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Looks like colored meth for marketing purposes and flavored meth for candy purposes are getting mixed up, with help from the DEA and hysterical news reporters. More info:

TV report from January: Police: Strawberry Meth Could Be Myth (includes report of a report of an SF clinic worker saying they've seen chocolate meth)
USA Today from a couple of days ago (probably the spark for the recent surge): DEA: Flavored meth use on the rise
USA Today blog collects links on colored meth
posted by mediareport at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2007

Isn't most of the current street methamphetamine in the form of "crystal meth" -- which is snorted and smoked, not ingested? And, if there is meth which is ingested -- why the need for candy flavoring, if it is likely best swallowed?
posted by ericb at 5:22 PM on March 28, 2007

AskMetaFilter:

What's a meth high like?

What's a cocaine high like?

What's a heroin high like?

and etcetera.

Actually, I should just go browse Erowid for the answers...
posted by five fresh fish at 7:19 PM on March 28, 2007

Isn't most of the current street methamphetamine in the form of "crystal meth" -- which is snorted and smoked, not ingested?

When you dig a little deeper, some reports note that the pill form (like m&ms!) is just a temporary packaging; after being sold it's broken up into the common powder form and then snorted or smoked or cooked down to shoot, whatever. That would kind of explain the pills, but I'm not sure why many dealers would go to the trouble when folks are just gonna smash it into powder again. And I still find the "they make it look like candy to recruit children!" angle pretty far-fetched. As elwoodwiles mentioned above, pretty colors are probably low on the scale of what attracts people to meth.
posted by mediareport at 8:08 PM on March 28, 2007

fff: Erowid is half braggarts and half embellishers... the experience will either be so greatly exaggerated in gravity and scope as to be unbelievable, or the reported quantity and variety of drugs taken will be so vast that they are enough to kill a man. Of course, there's probably the occasional honest-to-god clearly recollected trip report, but most are just thrown completely out of whack, by memories tinted by, well, you know.

That said, I'd offer my experiences with cocaine if such a thread were to come up, but I'm more of a psychedelic man. Ask me about 4-HO-AMT or 2C-E or 2C-T-7 (if you dare; I just might convince you to try them yourself :P)
posted by tehloki at 8:08 PM on March 28, 2007

Ravers have been turning out flavored drugs for years. They call em' candy kids for a reason.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 9:29 AM on March 29, 2007

Um, I gotta disagree with you there, tehloki, and come to the defence of erowid against what seems to be a pretty much baseless accusation. Of course, since the reports are largely anonymous we can never really know either way, but their review process seems to be pretty rigorous and I'd hardly say that most/many at all of the reports seem unbelievable on their face.
posted by Drexen at 7:49 AM on April 2, 2007

I guess I am embellishing a bit myself, but I've read many, many reports that have almost no credibility. People report taking doses of drugs well above the LD90, people report taking combinations of drugs that would be massively lethal.. I just think that the anonymous nature of the site gives no reason for the poster not to exaggerate their story to the point where it loses all of its helpfulness and clarity.
posted by tehloki at 5:12 PM on April 2, 2007

tehloki : I just think that the anonymous nature of the site gives no reason for the poster not to exaggerate their story to the point where it loses all of its helpfulness and clarity.

Sure, I get you there. Certainly, the dosage information is often suspect (not helped by the fact that people often don't actually know how much they're taking) and there are some pretty unlikely-sounding mega-combos. But I think the experiential aspect of it is less susceptible to falsification, and once you've read a few of the stories, you can start to kind of 'triangulate' your expectations and glean a good impression of what to expect from any given drug.
posted by Drexen at 3:24 AM on April 4, 2007

I'm just still kind of pissed off after reading the experience of the guy who apparently took 200mg of 2C-E.. I nearly went insane after taking only 30mg, thinking any reasonable dose was probably safe.
posted by tehloki at 11:11 AM on April 4, 2007