10 Weird Drugs You Don't Know About

A drug doesn’t have to be complicated to be weird. Something like carbogen, which contains just two ingredients, deserves a place on this list. Also known as Meduna’s mixture after inventor Ladislas Meduna, this is just oxygen and carbon dioxide mixed in a way to give the brain the sensation of suffocation. It was once used in psychology as a way of determining whether a person could handle stronger psychotropic drugs, but some people use it recreationally. Carbogen huffers report seeing waves of color coupled with a sense of inner peace. Sounds pretty cool.

Doing drugs can have some serious repercussions on the body, but this is ridiculous. The synthetic morphine known as “krokodil” in Russia -- chemical name desomorphine -- was first invented in 1932 and was used in legitimate medicine for a while before being outlawed. Recently, it’s enjoyed a resurgence in Russia because it’s fairly easy to synthesize from codeine, iodine and red phosphorous, sort of like making meth. And like meth, it can really screw you up. It earned the name “krokodil” because of the effect it has on the skin of heavy users, drying it out and making users look like terrifying lizard creatures. Addicts have an average lifespan of just two to three years.

It’s always funny to think about the first person to take something used for normal purposes and turn it into a way to get high. Take Freon: this commonly used refrigerant is in tons of machines, but you can also use it to get seriously ripped. By venting a Freon tank into a plastic bag, users can “huff” the gas like they would any other inhalants, but people who have tried it claim that it’s several orders of magnitude more powerful. If nitrous oxide is beer, Freon is pure grain alcohol. Oh, and it can also kill you deader than a doornail by freezing your lungs solid, and you get brain damage from it no matter what.

This herbal concoction prepared from a South American vine is actually getting somewhat popular in recent years, with celebrities like Courtney Love praising its properties. OK, so maybe that’s not the best endorsement. The vine is brewed into a tea with leaves from shrubs containing the psychedelic compound DMT. Users say that it gives you incredible hallucinations that can make you question your entire sense of identity, claiming that it’s a life-changing trip like no other. It also makes you vomit like crazy and gives you explosive diarrhea, but we all have to make sacrifices.

Many of the drugs on this list were originally invented for medical usage, and scopolamine is still on the market, employed for things like treating seasickness and other motion sicknesses. Astronauts even use it. This is, of course, in small doses. When you up the amount that goes into your body, then you’re in trouble. Scopolamine in larger doses has a powerful and often very disturbing hallucinogenic effect. In Colombia, where it’s used heavily, it’s called “devil’s breath,” and is often used to dose unsuspecting victims, as it makes users incredibly passive and pliable. Once dosed, the scopolamine zombies will happily empty their bank accounts, perform sexual favors, or whatever else they’re asked to do.

With the lab name 6-APB, Benzo Fury is a synthetic stimulant similar in composition to MDA that is still legal to manufacture and purchase in some countries. It’s sold over the Internet as a “research drug,” which means that the manufacturers don’t tell you how to use it. Effects include a feeling of happiness and love towards others, as well as visual effects when eyes are closed, and mental imagery. So basically ecstasy, but legal. Unfortunately, it’s also been connected to the deaths of multiple people. The danger with these drugs is that they’re created by private labs and not tested, so their long-term effects are totally unknown. 

One of the most interesting things about hallucinogenic drugs is how they affect the brain in different ways. A cool example is diisopropyltryptamine, which acts almost exclusively on your sense of hearing. Users report that when you first drop it, sounds start to seem flanged or shifted downwards, and the more you do, the lower the pitch seems to drop. That’s pretty much the only thing it does, although some people report loss of balance and equilibrium. If you like bass, load up on this stuff, get your car stereo bumping and you’ll be set for life.