This Man Does Not Make Poppers
July 27, 2021 11:46 AM Subscribe
I thought they came from gay heaven? It's like regular heaven, but a whole lot more fun.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:01 PM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:01 PM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
Interesting! For a really common party drug, I'd never really gotten a good explanation of how/why they work. (tl;dr: Basically they're a precursor to nitrous oxide.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:02 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:02 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well I was glad when they finally got around to saying they were common party drugs in the '70's 'cause that's exactly where I knew amyls from - and while the brief head rush was fun, it was easy to sense that a physical reaction that instantaneous and intense was probably not devoid of risk so, being the highly intelligent teen I was at then time, I wisely limited my use of poppers in favor of stuff like acid, mescaline, mushrooms and Quaaludes.
Crazy story, though - how strange that an entire industry could be effectively walled off for decades and that story likely not see the light of day w/o him deciding to tell the whole tale.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 1:11 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Crazy story, though - how strange that an entire industry could be effectively walled off for decades and that story likely not see the light of day w/o him deciding to tell the whole tale.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 1:11 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
I thought those little bottles were VCR head cleaner, not nail polish remover.
posted by fritley at 1:15 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by fritley at 1:15 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Tried them once at a Dead concert. Not sure if it was the hallucinogens , weed, beer, or the poppers, but I was F*D UP! The guy who gave it to me was pitching them as junior or mini whippets.
Don't want to use his name, but EF reminds me of a chapter from the book, The Millionaire Next Door. Just an ordinary guy who found a niche market who stays under the radar and prints money making a nice living. He is able to provide for his 29yo son who will need care for the rest of his life. He does not flash his business. Not only would you never know living in his neighborhood, his own daughter did not know until she was 18 and had to search it herself.
He provides a service for many people who either need to remove nail polish, clean their VCR heads or just clear their head.
posted by AugustWest at 1:17 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
Don't want to use his name, but EF reminds me of a chapter from the book, The Millionaire Next Door. Just an ordinary guy who found a niche market who stays under the radar and prints money making a nice living. He is able to provide for his 29yo son who will need care for the rest of his life. He does not flash his business. Not only would you never know living in his neighborhood, his own daughter did not know until she was 18 and had to search it herself.
He provides a service for many people who either need to remove nail polish, clean their VCR heads or just clear their head.
posted by AugustWest at 1:17 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
yeah amyl nitrate seems like one of those drugs that's mostly safe, but sometime very unsafe and so I think it's not something that the US regulatory regime is well-equipped to handle. It's hard enough to buy that you don't see people doing it all over the place but easy enough to buy that it's common in certain circles. I wonder who makes the base compound? It sounds like he just runs a bottling/wholesaling operation rather than an actual manufacturing operation. I guess it has enough alternative/industrial uses that there are chemical companies out there selling drums of the stuff.
This guys is printing money unless he tries to kill the golden goose, which he seems smart enough not to do. All it would take is one OSHA complaint from one of the people on the production line and the whole thing would get shut down. But he seems smart, not greedy and good at keeping a secret. Like he says, talking to a journalist about this may well be the path that generates the least interest from random federal regulators.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
This guys is printing money unless he tries to kill the golden goose, which he seems smart enough not to do. All it would take is one OSHA complaint from one of the people on the production line and the whole thing would get shut down. But he seems smart, not greedy and good at keeping a secret. Like he says, talking to a journalist about this may well be the path that generates the least interest from random federal regulators.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
It is also treatment for some types of poisonings, so we were looking into getting some for my lab at one point. Someone pointed out that if we wanted to skip regulatory steps it was widely available as "VCR cleaner"
posted by Canageek at 1:36 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Canageek at 1:36 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
future vice documentary
posted by firstdaffodils at 1:47 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by firstdaffodils at 1:47 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
someone out there buying 55 gallon drums of "VCR cleaner" in the year of our lord 2021, that doesn't raise any flags
posted by GuyZero at 2:01 PM on July 27, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 2:01 PM on July 27, 2021 [22 favorites]
Very Cool Rave cleaner.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:07 PM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:07 PM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I feel like my whole adult gay life I've been told by older gay men "oh the poppers now aren't so great and give you a headache. Back in my day we had real amyl nitrite and it was the best". Is that true, is one of these alkali nitrites better than the others? And what is actually being sold in stores?
My impression from the article is all alkali nitrates (amyl, butyl, iso-butyl) aren't allowed anymore but that they're being sold anyway. There's a brief mention of cyclohexyl nitrite but it sounds like that's not in fashion; the article says the factory is pumping "alkyl nitrites".
posted by Nelson at 2:10 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
My impression from the article is all alkali nitrates (amyl, butyl, iso-butyl) aren't allowed anymore but that they're being sold anyway. There's a brief mention of cyclohexyl nitrite but it sounds like that's not in fashion; the article says the factory is pumping "alkyl nitrites".
posted by Nelson at 2:10 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Even before the general spreads of VCRs, the cover story was that you were supposed to clean the needle on your expensive turntable setup with it.
posted by gimonca at 2:11 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 2:11 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I feel like my whole adult gay life I've been told by older gay men "oh the poppers now aren't so great and give you a headache. Back in my day we had real amyl nitrite and it was the best". Is that true, is one of these alkali nitrites better than the others? And what is actually being sold in stores?
My impression from the article is all alkali nitrates (amyl, butyl, iso-butyl) aren't allowed anymore but that they're being sold anyway. There's a brief mention of cyclohexyl nitrite but it sounds like that's not in fashion; the article says the factory is pumping "alkyl nitrites".
Grey market products get grey market source/quality control......
posted by lalochezia at 2:14 PM on July 27, 2021
lifetimes ago I was selling this stuff.. a downturn in the economy, the panicky feeling after searching for a summer job to help with school costs in the fall, and next thing I know I'm replying to an ad for an adult store clerk along with my job-hunting buddy. plot twist: this was the end of the day during our second week of searching for work and the second time that day we'd gone to check at the Hire a Student office. thank you, Canada's Hire a Student program, for helping to place me in gainful summer employment where I ended up selling dildoes and poppers, dispensing tokens to the peep show, and telling a local activist in "undercover disguise" (complete with fake moustache) that she had to leave the premises. this even sounds fake to my own ears all these years later.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:18 PM on July 27, 2021 [39 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 2:18 PM on July 27, 2021 [39 favorites]
someone out there buying 55 gallon drums of "VCR cleaner" in the year of our lord 2021, that doesn't raise any flags
I mean, we'd need a few mL of it to treat any mishaps while waiting for transport to a hospital, not 55 gallon drums. We are an academic lab, not an industrial one. I think we decided to just stop working with the dangerous chemical instead.
posted by Canageek at 2:29 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I mean, we'd need a few mL of it to treat any mishaps while waiting for transport to a hospital, not 55 gallon drums. We are an academic lab, not an industrial one. I think we decided to just stop working with the dangerous chemical instead.
posted by Canageek at 2:29 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
yeah amyl nitrate seems like one of those drugs that's mostly safe, but sometime very unsafe and so I think it's
Found in Diesel Fuel:)...Imagine a pharmacy carrying both. Dad told me they looked liked ammonia glass ampules in the 50's
Tried at a club. 'Roxanne' was playing. For 1:40, it was liked two Denizens trying to laugh between the chorus. So any variation sayin' red light throughout the night brought raciuous ribald exultation. One of the funniest 3:20, like a Motown song, I can recall but would not try today.
posted by clavdivs at 2:47 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Found in Diesel Fuel:)...Imagine a pharmacy carrying both. Dad told me they looked liked ammonia glass ampules in the 50's
Tried at a club. 'Roxanne' was playing. For 1:40, it was liked two Denizens trying to laugh between the chorus. So any variation sayin' red light throughout the night brought raciuous ribald exultation. One of the funniest 3:20, like a Motown song, I can recall but would not try today.
posted by clavdivs at 2:47 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have bought this stuff but specifically to clean things like tape heads.
This is one I haven't ever done nor do I plan to.
And I'm saying that as someone who once owned 3 nitrous tanks in various sizes back in my rave days, which weren't actually ever filled that often and reserved for very private parties.
Also if anyone out there happens to need this information as a tangent:
Getting un-sulfured, not denatured or otherwise pure nitrous is difficult to find these days from the usual performance automotive types of shops.
A number of years ago someone introduced me to a way around this to filter out the sulfur , and you can likely search for more info about how to correctly do this, but here's the short rundown:
You get a proper high pressure gas cylinder regulator that fits your tank, some appropriate tubing, a "Cornelieus keg" of the sort used for small beer, wine or other beverage service kegs, the appropriate fittings to feed sulfured nitrous into it (backwards, I think, down the siphon tube) and then you fill the secondary keg with water and a whole box of plain old baking soda.
If I recall correctly the output of the regulator was small, like 15 PSI. You just need barely enough pressure to force the gas down into the water and baking soda solution.
Then from the Cornelius keg you run basic PVC low pressure tubing and cheap plastic keg taps of the sort used to put a multi-head tap on a plain old beer keg, the kind of thing you would use for a party or picnic.
The end result is clean, de-sulfured nitrous without most of the noise or high pressure or cryogenic danger of filling balloons one at a time directly from the high pressure tank as people tend to do, and you can run like 4-8 tap heads off of the keg so you end up with a sort of communal nitrous hookah arrangement that allows multiple balloons to be filled at the same time, or even relatively safe direct consumption from the taps.
As I recall it a single box of baking soda was enough to filter at least several full sized tanks of gas if not more, and you'll immediately know when it's time to change it out because suddenly the nitrous stinks of sulfur and is very unpleasant.
Anyway, don't take any of this as gospel. I haven't seen or touched this stuff in many, many years. I just thought the solution was very cool and so much nicer than the usual way that deadheads and ravers operated a nitrous tank without a regulator or filter and filling single balloons directly off of the tank valve.
posted by loquacious at 2:53 PM on July 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
This is one I haven't ever done nor do I plan to.
And I'm saying that as someone who once owned 3 nitrous tanks in various sizes back in my rave days, which weren't actually ever filled that often and reserved for very private parties.
Also if anyone out there happens to need this information as a tangent:
Getting un-sulfured, not denatured or otherwise pure nitrous is difficult to find these days from the usual performance automotive types of shops.
A number of years ago someone introduced me to a way around this to filter out the sulfur , and you can likely search for more info about how to correctly do this, but here's the short rundown:
You get a proper high pressure gas cylinder regulator that fits your tank, some appropriate tubing, a "Cornelieus keg" of the sort used for small beer, wine or other beverage service kegs, the appropriate fittings to feed sulfured nitrous into it (backwards, I think, down the siphon tube) and then you fill the secondary keg with water and a whole box of plain old baking soda.
If I recall correctly the output of the regulator was small, like 15 PSI. You just need barely enough pressure to force the gas down into the water and baking soda solution.
Then from the Cornelius keg you run basic PVC low pressure tubing and cheap plastic keg taps of the sort used to put a multi-head tap on a plain old beer keg, the kind of thing you would use for a party or picnic.
The end result is clean, de-sulfured nitrous without most of the noise or high pressure or cryogenic danger of filling balloons one at a time directly from the high pressure tank as people tend to do, and you can run like 4-8 tap heads off of the keg so you end up with a sort of communal nitrous hookah arrangement that allows multiple balloons to be filled at the same time, or even relatively safe direct consumption from the taps.
As I recall it a single box of baking soda was enough to filter at least several full sized tanks of gas if not more, and you'll immediately know when it's time to change it out because suddenly the nitrous stinks of sulfur and is very unpleasant.
Anyway, don't take any of this as gospel. I haven't seen or touched this stuff in many, many years. I just thought the solution was very cool and so much nicer than the usual way that deadheads and ravers operated a nitrous tank without a regulator or filter and filling single balloons directly off of the tank valve.
posted by loquacious at 2:53 PM on July 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
I have to roll my eyes at a self-identified straight guy claiming “Without this product, a multitude of gay men cannot have gay sex” — sodomy existed long before poppers did
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:57 PM on July 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:57 PM on July 27, 2021 [13 favorites]
I learned about amyls from the inaugural number displayed on my first pager. As a joke, a friend paged me with the VM number for the San Francisco Jacks, a "group of like-minded men who like to jerk off in front of each other". The monthly message let you know there towels and lube would be provided, coat check is mandatory, creative pecker play is encouraged but 'no poppers or reds'
There are rules, you understand.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:08 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are rules, you understand.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:08 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Haha, "Grey Market.." Vice: "Well.. we haven't moved on to the grey market.. yet."
Roger Ackroyd.. rolled eyes also, thank you.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:15 PM on July 27, 2021
Roger Ackroyd.. rolled eyes also, thank you.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:15 PM on July 27, 2021
Basically they're a precursor to nitrous oxide
Nitric oxide (NO), not nitrous (N2O). Different effect actually.
posted by atoxyl at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2021 [10 favorites]
Nitric oxide (NO), not nitrous (N2O). Different effect actually.
posted by atoxyl at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2021 [10 favorites]
someone out there buying 55 gallon drums of "VCR cleaner" in the year of our lord 2021, that doesn't raise any flags
VHS, no. Betamax, yes.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:04 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
VHS, no. Betamax, yes.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:04 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: Creative pecker play is encouraged.
posted by loquacious at 6:25 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 6:25 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
And on that note I'm imagining cute little pecker hats and costumes, perhaps some elaborate pecker costume puppet role play. One could act out episodes of Spitting Image style puppets and political satire.
This isn't the first time I've thought about it but part of me wishes I was into guys and/or guilt-free casual sex because I'd probably be and have a lot of fun.
Alas, no. Instead I'm femme attracted rather shy and demisexual and I need connections, trust and lots of mental and emotional foreplay. And guys just smell all wrong. Oh well.
On the other hand in reality I know most of my cis male gay friends don't really have it any easier, especially when it comes to emotionally available and committed relationships or even landing a nice compatible date at all.
posted by loquacious at 6:34 PM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
This isn't the first time I've thought about it but part of me wishes I was into guys and/or guilt-free casual sex because I'd probably be and have a lot of fun.
Alas, no. Instead I'm femme attracted rather shy and demisexual and I need connections, trust and lots of mental and emotional foreplay. And guys just smell all wrong. Oh well.
On the other hand in reality I know most of my cis male gay friends don't really have it any easier, especially when it comes to emotionally available and committed relationships or even landing a nice compatible date at all.
posted by loquacious at 6:34 PM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I feel like my whole adult gay life I've been told by older gay men "oh the poppers now aren't so great and give you a headache. Back in my day we had real amyl nitrite and it was the best". Is that true, is one of these alkali nitrites better than the others? And what is actually being sold in stores?
Unless you’re going all the way back to the days of the glass ampules I think it’s long been a little murky exactly what the “classic formula” is. Basically, as it says in the article, the four and five carbon chains - (iso)butyl and (iso)amyl = pentyl (some people talk about amyl and pentyl like they’re different, which they are not) are the classics and the ones people generally consider to be “good.” Isopropyl nitrate is apparently to be avoided because it can damage vision. It’s unfortunately also the most common in the U.K. and some other places because the older types were banned. My impression is that in the U.S. one can get any of these chemicals on the grey market, but it is, again, a little murky what you’ll actually be getting under a given brand name.
(I’ve never tried poppers, even though I’ve tried everything else, but it’s worth knowing these things.)
posted by atoxyl at 7:58 PM on July 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Unless you’re going all the way back to the days of the glass ampules I think it’s long been a little murky exactly what the “classic formula” is. Basically, as it says in the article, the four and five carbon chains - (iso)butyl and (iso)amyl = pentyl (some people talk about amyl and pentyl like they’re different, which they are not) are the classics and the ones people generally consider to be “good.” Isopropyl nitrate is apparently to be avoided because it can damage vision. It’s unfortunately also the most common in the U.K. and some other places because the older types were banned. My impression is that in the U.S. one can get any of these chemicals on the grey market, but it is, again, a little murky what you’ll actually be getting under a given brand name.
(I’ve never tried poppers, even though I’ve tried everything else, but it’s worth knowing these things.)
posted by atoxyl at 7:58 PM on July 27, 2021 [5 favorites]
Wild that all the different PWD brands are the same contents. Only the label is different!
posted by monkeymike at 9:09 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by monkeymike at 9:09 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am a nosy Philadelphian who had to know where in our suburbs the popper factory is, so I googled the name from the article. Without actually naming the town, I will say it’s a place that I think of as very conservative by local standards, somewhere where cops who are afraid of the city but don’t want to be overly far from it live. So much queer joy stemming from this nondescript factory in a place where my first association if you asked me half an hour ago would be “blue lives matter flags.” This sparks joy.
posted by ActionPopulated at 10:21 PM on July 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by ActionPopulated at 10:21 PM on July 27, 2021 [9 favorites]
There's something quaint about a factory where people still make things in the middle of an American city using 50 year old technology and people doing things by hand. If this were not in the grey market it would be offshored, sold in bulk for 10 cents, bought by a hedge fund who is owned by a SPAC who sells complex derivatives and assorted other chemicals through a holding company based out of a nation no one has heard of due to their relaxed shipping laws or some other esoteric tax reason and then a captain falls asleep in the Suez Canal and suddenly no one can get poppers for two weeks because a captain on a ship no one has heard of, running a flag from a small nation in the Pacific has the world supply of poppers queued up in a port in the Mediterranean. But no, because this guy keeps a tight grip on his supply chain and crazy high profit margins (400% markup?! That's better than Apple), on a quasi-legal product we get a continuous flow of products.
posted by geoff. at 11:44 PM on July 27, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 11:44 PM on July 27, 2021 [10 favorites]
“Without this product, a multitude of gay men cannot have gay sex. Bottom line,” he said earnestly. “I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart. If it was hurting people, I wouldn’t be in it.”
How does the sausage get made in extended journalistic non-fiction? Take this hilarious quotation. Does the comedy come a) from the speaker, for whom delivering lines like this with a straight face (ha ha) is part of the pleasure of getting to talk about his job; b) from the writer, who realized what an inspired selection it was from the larger interview transcript; c) from the writer, who paraphrased from notes or spruced up Farr's actual words; or, least plausibly, d) from me, who am the only person on the lookout for bottoms in this piece? The giveaway word "earnestly" makes me lean towards b, but I wonder what others think, especially anyone who has ever done longform journalism.
posted by sy at 1:32 AM on July 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
How does the sausage get made in extended journalistic non-fiction? Take this hilarious quotation. Does the comedy come a) from the speaker, for whom delivering lines like this with a straight face (ha ha) is part of the pleasure of getting to talk about his job; b) from the writer, who realized what an inspired selection it was from the larger interview transcript; c) from the writer, who paraphrased from notes or spruced up Farr's actual words; or, least plausibly, d) from me, who am the only person on the lookout for bottoms in this piece? The giveaway word "earnestly" makes me lean towards b, but I wonder what others think, especially anyone who has ever done longform journalism.
posted by sy at 1:32 AM on July 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
I mean, I don't think this guy is trying to pretend buttsex didn't exist before he came along. Earlier in the article he calls it a "deal with the devil" so clearly he has some small hangups about this still, either subconscious homophobia or possible bad side effects or both. Anyway, I like that this square straight middle-aged man has been helping bottoms enjoy sex for decades.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:44 AM on July 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:44 AM on July 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
I don't think it's the homophobia so much as the potentially noxious chemicals.
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:36 AM on July 28, 2021
posted by firstdaffodils at 8:36 AM on July 28, 2021
Wild that all the different PWD brands are the same contents. Only the label is different!
Well there are five or six chemicals known to be sold as poppers so I wouldn’t assume every bottle is exactly the same thing. But there’s no secret sauce, they’re all going to be one of those things, regardless of price point.
People seem to have a lot of elaborate ideas about quality and freshness and they are volatile solvents so freshness presumably matters. But I tend to assume that “better back in the day” means “better the first dozen times I tried it” unless you live in a place where only the supposedly more toxic ones like isopropyl nitrite are available.
posted by atoxyl at 9:52 AM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well there are five or six chemicals known to be sold as poppers so I wouldn’t assume every bottle is exactly the same thing. But there’s no secret sauce, they’re all going to be one of those things, regardless of price point.
People seem to have a lot of elaborate ideas about quality and freshness and they are volatile solvents so freshness presumably matters. But I tend to assume that “better back in the day” means “better the first dozen times I tried it” unless you live in a place where only the supposedly more toxic ones like isopropyl nitrite are available.
posted by atoxyl at 9:52 AM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't think it's the homophobia so much as the potentially noxious chemicals.
The photographs of the factory were interesting. Boxes stacked in such a way as to tip over. Workers handling product without gloves. Food items near the production line.
If workplace safety doesn't seem to be much of concern on the part of the business owner, I can't imagine he cares much about potential side effects.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:26 AM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
The photographs of the factory were interesting. Boxes stacked in such a way as to tip over. Workers handling product without gloves. Food items near the production line.
If workplace safety doesn't seem to be much of concern on the part of the business owner, I can't imagine he cares much about potential side effects.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:26 AM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Erowid-ish: Amyl Nitrate (sniffed from a small bottle at a party) was a brief disorienting rush with tunnel-vision and muffled audio, followed by a headache, kinda like an adrenaline rush. In contrast, a gas-mix (N2O + things?) for some dental procedure was quite enjoyable.
posted by ovvl at 4:22 PM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 4:22 PM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
a gas-mix (N2O + things?)
My dentist gives me a mix of N2O + O2. They could go a little harder on the N2O, though.
posted by mikelieman at 12:11 AM on July 29, 2021
My dentist gives me a mix of N2O + O2. They could go a little harder on the N2O, though.
posted by mikelieman at 12:11 AM on July 29, 2021
There is brief mention in the article of San Francisco gay and AIDS activist Hank Wilson (1947-2008), (Previously) who along with John Lauritsen wrote the book Death Rush: Poppers and AIDS. I knew Hank and he (among his many other forms of activism) put up an anti-poppers display at the Folsom Street Fair. He felt vindicated when, shortly before he died, a 2007 study found a higher degree of correlation between poppers use and HIV seroconversion than crystal meth use and seroconversion.
posted by larrybob at 8:02 AM on August 7, 2021
posted by larrybob at 8:02 AM on August 7, 2021
Hank Wilson’s writing on HIV and poppers has even been cited by recent papers on HIV and poppers use in China (2020) and France (2018)
posted by larrybob at 8:13 AM on August 7, 2021
posted by larrybob at 8:13 AM on August 7, 2021
There's something quaint about a factory where people still make things in the middle of an American city using 50 year old technology and people doing things by hand. If this were not in the grey market it would be offshored, sold in bulk for 10 cents, bought by a hedge fund who is owned by a SPAC who sells complex derivatives and assorted other chemicals through a holding company based out of a nation no one has heard of due to their relaxed shipping laws or some other esoteric tax reason and then a captain falls asleep in the Suez Canal and suddenly no one can get poppers for two weeks because a captain on a ship no one has heard of, running a flag from a small nation in the Pacific has the world supply of poppers queued up in a port in the Mediterranean. But no, because this guy keeps a tight grip on his supply chain and crazy high profit margins (400% markup?! That's better than Apple), on a quasi-legal product we get a continuous flow of products.
posted by geoff. at 11:44 PM on July 27 [10 favorites +] [!]
Ah, just so you know, I talked to someone I know who works in chemical production (specifically, small batch industrial production, So this exact size of product from what I can tell). He says this is almost certainly made in China or (possibly, though not likely) India, then shipped to the US for labelling. You'll notice they are only assembling it in those factories. So yeah, they probably have offhshored all the parts that matter, import it as cleaner and then label it themselves.
Which also means that it isn't getting proper QC when it arrives, which is...not great.
posted by Canageek at 8:54 PM on August 9, 2021
posted by geoff. at 11:44 PM on July 27 [10 favorites +] [!]
Ah, just so you know, I talked to someone I know who works in chemical production (specifically, small batch industrial production, So this exact size of product from what I can tell). He says this is almost certainly made in China or (possibly, though not likely) India, then shipped to the US for labelling. You'll notice they are only assembling it in those factories. So yeah, they probably have offhshored all the parts that matter, import it as cleaner and then label it themselves.
Which also means that it isn't getting proper QC when it arrives, which is...not great.
posted by Canageek at 8:54 PM on August 9, 2021
Canageek, are you suggesting every product made in China or India doesn't go through proper QC? Seems like an extremely broad statement.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:40 PM on August 10, 2021
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:40 PM on August 10, 2021
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posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:55 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]