Methoxetamine: The “Legal” Dissociative That Is Stronger & More Dangerous Than K

by Terry Gotham

Now that everyone is slowly filtering back into the default world, I wanted to mention a somewhat warped trend that the dance music community has been coping with for the last couple of years. Peeps search for replacements to a select illegal drug of choice, then optimize efficacy when they find one. While this sounds kind of harmless, any of our regular readers will be aware of the issues I’ve discussed surrounding legal highs & novel psychoactive substances. Today I want to talk Methoxetamine or MXE, the latest Ketamine substitute you probably saw someone sniff without knowing on playa.

As Ketamine was cut by dealers worldwide, people started looking for replacement substances. Additionally, if your K dealer was ever busted, you needed another source. What people found was Methoxetamine, a much stronger disassociative powder that has provided some crazy trips and terrifying experiences for the heavy users among us. Also, apparently the M-Ket Holes the heavy doses induce result in people “standing upright, totally zoned out, with pants full of shit.” That’s right, all the fun of a K-hole, now with new & improved involuntary bowel evacuation!

Central to the problem is that Ketamine’s effects are well known & we’ve got a ton of research on the stuff. MXE, MXP & the other substitutes for Ketamine aren’t cleared for human consumption, nor do we have a good understanding of their array of symptoms. We have good longitudinal data about using Ketamine for months or even years on end. We don’t even have data on what happens if you take this stuff every night over a weekend, much less if you build it into your annual drug consumption. This makes MXE potentially more dangerous than K. Ask anyone who has seen someone ruin their lives on Ketamine and they can tell you just how dangerous Ketamine is. So, to say that this stuff is more dangerous, seems like a bit of a stretch, but the proof is out there for people willing to look.

I have no issue with people putting whatever powder they want up their noses as long as they know what’s up. But I don’t believe most people truly do know what they’re snorting. This is a substance that you can buy on the internet (legally, depending on where you live on the planet of course). The New York DanceSafe chapter has noticed MXE being cut with other synthetics, so even the new legal highs aren’t safe.

The solutions are the same that you’ve heard me bang on about for a little while now. Firstly, test your shit. If you don’t, you’re liable to put something up your nose that shouldn’t be there, or in dosages that will mess you up in the micro/accelerate addiction in the macro. Secondly, if you’re actually interested in doing MXE or MXP, do as much research as you possibly can. Doing a drug you’ve never heard of before, while on something else, just because someone offers you a bump of it at a party is literally the most irresponsible thing you can do at a party short of setting a fire or shitting the dance floor. Many of us are guilty of doing that very thing, taking the unknown substance, not shitting the dance floor (I hope). As for big picture solutions, the legalizing & regulating of drugs is essentially the only thing that can help structurally change the problems. Of course, chuckleheads are doing the exact opposite, but as anyone who has done drugs can tell you, we can’t schedule our way to utopia.

Join the gang of harm reduction warriors on Twitter at 1:30pm PST to talk about Ketamine, MXE & M-Ket Hole stories, because we love you and don’t want you shitting yourselves.