BENGALURU: What has been called one of the deadliest designer psychotropic drugs till date, N-BOMe is taking the city’s party scene by storm. “It debuted last season, about six months ago,” says Nath (name changed), a dealer, adding that it is now the favourite. The users are mostly in the teens and into the early twenties.
NBOMe is being sold as blotters of different colours and, in Bengaluru, the black blotters called Black Mamba are the most commonly available. “Madiwala is the hotspot,” says Nath. “They are also sold as yellow blotters, and they go by the street name Yellow Potential”.
The hallucinogenic was first sold in the US in 2010, as ‘legal’ LSD, and it has since claimed nearly 20 lives. Early this year, it claimed as many lives in Australia. These are sold as LSD but they are much cheaper -- Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 for a hit of LSD vs Rs 300 to Rs 1,100 for NBOMe -- with different chemical compositions and NBOMe described as giving a “more visual experience” of the two.
The only problem is that the ones who synthesise this cheaper version can mix-up ratios and then there is no saying what the effect would be. It could range from hypertension and paranoia to death.
SK Sinha, Zonal Director of Narcotics Control Bureau, says that dealers experiment with different formulae to bypass rules and regulations. Since last year, NCB south has seized three consignments of NBOMe -- one which was meant for Saudi Arabia from Koramangala, one from a manufacturing unit in Mangaluru and one that was making its way into Bengaluru from Hyderabad. NCB Bengaluru send their report to the Centre and got NBOMe listed under Scheduled Drugs, under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
Besides the shape-shifting nature of these drugs, another problem with controlling their use and sale is the negligible size of the shipments.Nath, also a regular at raves, says “Mules get stones of 10 g each and that is enough to make about 100 bottles, or a 1,000 drops,” he says. Sinha says that this would be smaller than a shirt button.One drop of NBOMe, which is chemically substituted phenethylamine, can give a trip that lasts for about 14 hours. “That is nearly double that which LSD gives, which could be about 7 hours,” says Nath.
Born in physician’s lab
In 2003, Ralf Heim was researching for his PhD thesis at Free University of Berlin when he discovered NBOMe composition. His study was in biochemistry and the brain’s usage of serotonin receptors. This was then studied further by David Nichols, attached to the Purdue University, and published as study into its hallucinogenic action in 2007. Three years later, it started selling as a recreational drug extensively.
Novel manufacturing
SK Sinha, Zonal Director of Narcotics Control Bureau, says in Mangaluru they arrested two men in their mid twenties manufacturing NBOMe in a particularly novel way. “They had bought two chemicals, both legal, from China and Mumbai and bought the tablet-making machine from an online store,” he says, pointing at how difficult it is trace such an operation. Everything is aboveboard and legal till the final product is made.
LSD vs NBOMe
A Reddit thread, two years ago, discussed in detail differences between the LSD and NBOMe experiences. Few found the first safer and the second a bit too strong and rough with an experience of vascoconstriction. Another reported that it must have been the variety of NBOMe used that caused a bad trip, and suggested the user try 25C instead of its B, I or D versions. Users also reported that they felt safer with LSD, which gives cleaner and more ‘linear’ trips to NBOMe’s circular and confusing ones. There are furious users who say that bad trips are a result of ‘irresponsible’ excess.