Netherlands Research Chemicals ban

[The Crocodile]

8 minutes ago, Kairos said:

Is it possible to see visual effects like in psychedelics through trataka meditation .

If say one does it for 20-30 mins everyday ?

Yeah, especially if you're using a light source.

But a few hours would be better.

[Hojo]

If the planet bans psychedelics what we have seen will be sacred knowledge.

[Leo Gura]

22 hours ago, AION said:

Those RC sites have a reputation to uphold.

So do most dark vendors. They can't sell effectively without good reviews. Very rare for a dark vendor to sell some garbage if they have many good reviews.

But RC vendors excel at selling rare unpopular chemicals.

Edited Friday at 11:28 AM by Leo Gura

[something_else]

22 hours ago, AION said:

Those anonymous suppliers on the dark web could be selling anything because they don’t have liability.

From what I hear they mostly they use escrow systems which mean that if you don't get what you ordered you can raise a dispute and they won't get their money.

[LambdaDelta]

Thing with darknet is you can't be as certain you're getting the pure chemical. Even if it's mostly pure, there's incentive to cut corners, introduce some adulterants which most people wouldn't notice. Testing is a pain in the ass, plus all those at-home kits are not fully reliable either, for proper results you'd need a lab to do a GC/MS on it.
If your order happens to be laced with something serious, you might be too dead to worry about leaving a negative review or getting your money back.

Paradoxically, reputation is of more concern on the darknet than clearnet, as that's really the only incentive to play ball there. RC vendors exit scam all the time, but that ends at taking your money. They know they can get away with it since nobody will sue, going to court is much more expensive than whatever order value you lost, plus fear of some legal and social repercussions. The chemicals they sell though are much purer, typically coming from a single lab that has appropriate government permits and such. Any RC vendor accepting bank transfers is also a legal entity that can be found in the country's company register, the names of the owners are all traceable. So if customers were to kick the bucket from a contaminated batch, they'd be in real trouble, and the 'not for human consumption' label wouldn't save them. 

[LambdaDelta]

12 hours ago, RightHand said:

Has anyone here thought seriously about producing research papers on psychedelics? Like stuff that could move the ball forward? 

That's not feasible. You'd need tons of capital, a degree in neuropharmacology or some adjacent fields, and government permits to be taken seriously and not run into legal issues. You'd have to make this your life purpose, otherwise you'd just be another crackpot. Serious studies with MRI machines, complex administration procedures, extremely pure substances, multiple participants, double-blind controls and all that nonsense are a must to do good research. The best outsiders like us can do is finance such studies, advocate for them politically, or participate as subjects.

[AION]

7 minutes ago, LambdaDelta said:

Thing with darknet is you can't be as certain you're getting the pure chemical. Even if it's mostly pure, there's incentive to cut corners, introduce some adulterants which most people wouldn't notice. Testing is a pain in the ass, plus all those at-home kits are not fully reliable either, for proper results you'd need a lab to do a GC/MS on it.
If your order happens to be laced with something serious, you might be too dead to worry about leaving a negative review or getting your money back.

Paradoxically, reputation is of more concern on the darknet than clearnet, as that's really the only incentive to play ball there. RC vendors exit scam all the time, but that ends at taking your money. They know they can get away with it since nobody will sue, going to court is much more expensive than whatever order value you lost, plus fear of some legal and social repercussions. The chemicals they sell though are much purer, typically coming from a single lab that has appropriate government permits and such. Any RC vendor accepting bank transfers is also a legal entity that can be found in the country's company register, the names of the owners are all traceable. So if customers were to kick the bucket from a contaminated batch, they'd be in real trouble, and the 'not for human consumption' label wouldn't save them. 

Yea that is what I was thinking. Can’t write a review if you are dead as a door nail. 

[LambdaDelta]

5 minutes ago, AION said:

Yea that is what I was thinking. Can’t write a review if you are dead as a door nail. 

It might not even be the vendor's fault, there was an instance where a smalltime vendor got a batch from China that was mislabeled, supposed to be 2C-B-FLY, but actually was Bromo-DragonFLY, which's ~20x as potent. People took their normal 2C-B-FLY doses and died horribly painful deaths, all the while tripping, including the vendor himself. Wouldn't happen with a reputable clearnet vendor as they test whatever they get from labs with a third party via GC/MS to ensure everything's in order. 

[Clarence]

@LambdaDelta May I ask which method you chose to freeze the substances? I've read about using laboratory-grade zip bags or small glass vials with a silicone seal. In both cases, it is also recommended to add a silica gel desiccant inside, but without direct contact with the substance (which sounds a bit difficult).

I also read that once defrosted, the substance will degrade more quickly at room temperature than it would have before being frozen, meaning that batches should be kept small.

Did you do something like this? Or a combination of different methods?

@OBEler Could you also share how you plan to store 5-MeO-MALT long term?

@Leo Gura Do you have specific recommandations for properly preserving psychedelics long term? I'm really concerned about the ban (and potential future bans).

[Nemra]

On 1/29/2025 at 4:14 AM, LambdaDelta said:

Effective on July 1, 2025. 6 months remain.

Luckily, I'll visit there for a few days before that happens.

Although, I can always try salvia and truffles.

So then visiting Canada next it is!

Edited Saturday at 03:27 PM by Nemra

[LambdaDelta]

2 hours ago, Clarence said:

@LambdaDelta May I ask which method you chose to freeze the substances? I've read about using laboratory-grade zip bags or small glass vials with a silicone seal. In both cases, it is also recommended to add a silica gel desiccant inside, but without direct contact with the substance (which sounds a bit difficult).

I also read that once defrosted, the substance will degrade more quickly at room temperature than it would have before being frozen, meaning that batches should be kept small.

Did you do something like this? Or a combination of different methods?

What I did is take each plastic zip baggie with the powder in it, empty it of air as best as I could, put that into a labeled mylar bag, stack multiple of those, and place them in airtight glass containers (with rubber gasket on edges). That is placed in my freezer at -18°C. It's by no means a perfect process, but you needn't be too worried about that. Sure, it would be preferable to have oxygen absorbers, or true vacuum seals, at -20°C and below. At a certain point you'll be dealing with diminishing marginal returns as you improve the process further. You would need loads of dessicant for it to have significant effects inside the freezer, cold on its own does that very well.
Glass vials are nice, but you'd still need to block out the light, and it is not a very convenient access method, nor space efficient. If you have some rare substance under 100mg, it makes sense to store that in a vial. Same for when preparing volumetrically dosed solutions, but I keep those in the refrigerator. 
You're correct about thawing, so it's best to keep small amounts of things you use on a regular basis inside your room. For instance, I have 80 tabs of LSD freezed, and 8 in my room inside a carton box. Same principles apply here, the main dangers to chemicals are humidity, light, oxygen, and heat. Minimize those, and even at room temperature they will last very, very long. I believe the only substance of mine so far to have suffered any damage is harmala, after a year it's partly oxidized, perhaps because I didn't properly zip it up. Even then that does not necessarily imply loss of potency, people have consumed 10 year old oxidized drugs and didn't notice significant differences.  

[Clarence]

@LambdaDelta Thank you. I'll try to do this. I hope it will work.

[Nemra]

@LambdaDelta, do you know what the actual reasons are for the upcoming bans?

Edited Saturday at 09:29 PM by Nemra

[LambdaDelta]

14 hours ago, Nemra said:

@LambdaDelta, do you know what the actual reasons are for the upcoming bans?

A lot of the chemicals being banned right now are actually pretty dangerous. Cathinones, amphs, fentalogs, synthetic cannabinoids. Very addictive and potentially deadly. You can see all the degeneracy people get up to on them on Reddit. The psychedelic part of this current ban is collateral damage, as every phenethylamine under the sun is included. Although even those are more unpredictable compared to other classes due to increased vasoconstriction. This is a blanket ban to avoid analogues popping up. Sets a dangerous precedent though, my best guess is pyros are next. It's not a particularly useful policy, things are just going to move to the darknet. Some politicians are too ignorant to understand this, others simply want to sweep the issue under the rug away from the public eye.

Main trouble here is that shops will start to shut down as selling only a couple permitted chemicals isn't very profitable.

[gengar]

On 31/01/2025 at 0:26 PM, Leo Gura said:

So do most dark vendors. They can't sell effectively without good reviews. Very rare for a dark vendor to sell some garbage if they have many good reviews.

But RC vendors excel at selling rare unpopular chemicals.

Dark vendors can fake reviews a lot easier though.

[AION]

I can’t believe people talk about epistemology and such and then buy stuff from a dark web Russian roulette. I actually wanted to use different words but I’m trying to be less edgy. 

Edited Sunday at 06:53 PM by AION

[Schizophonia]

24 minutes ago, gengar said:

Dark vendors can fake reviews a lot easier though.

But they can't fake bad reviews, so when you see a seller with thousands of good orders and very few bad ones, he is very probably a good seller.
There's no way to tell with an RC site, unless you search on reddit or somewhere else, but it's the same with sellers on .onion markets.

Edited Sunday at 06:58 PM by Schizophonia

[LambdaDelta]

2 hours ago, gengar said:

Dark vendors can fake reviews a lot easier though.

Not really, unless they have connections to the marketplace admins. It's much more complicated to create fake reviews on those platforms than Trustpilot and similar. Reddit and forums prohibit all sourcing related discussions, so you don't have much to go off on. But on Dread there's no such limitations, exit scams, fake reviews, data leaks, etc. are quickly detected and reported.