[0:00]
Our main story tonight concerns drugs. We've talked about all sorts of them before, from opioids to compounded drugs to psychedelics to opioids again to lethal injection drugs to opioids for a third and final time to, of course, a bonus opioid story. But tonight, we're going to talk about so-called gas station drugs. You know, the colorful products with weird names you tend to see behind the counter at gas stations, convenience stores, and smoke shops. It's a whole weird world of poppers, whippetss, 
[0:31]
questionable supplements, and boner pills. And if you are wondering who buys those last ones, I'll let this convenience store clerk fill you in. >> This is why I got to leave Circle K soon, bro. For real. Like, so today I was just chilling, right? Working, whatever. This white dude come up. He's like, "Yo, you got any any dick pills? Like rhino dick pills?" And he did this with his arm. I was like, "We had these." He's like, "Fuck it, bro. Let me take him." I was like, "All right, bet." And while he was paying and he he opened it and he he popped one. He went and he popped one in his mouth. 
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And I was like and he was like, "Shit." And then he popped another one. I was like, "Oh my What are you doing, bro? Why the did you take two in a public area like this? You couldn't go home? You couldn't wait till you go home? Like, what the is going on, son?" >> Yeah, all valid questions. And I will say after hearing that, I won't feel nearly as bad the next time I open a Gatorade at the register before paying. Look, I'll pay FOR IT IN A SECOND, BUT trust me, this could be way weirder. 
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But again, it's not just boner pills. These products are part of a sprawling industry, and they promise everything from increased energy to pain relief. And while you might assume that they're just snake oil, that's not necessarily true. Some of these drugs can be actively dangerous, presenting risks of addiction, just like controlled substances. And here's some who've been addicted to them tell it. The very fact that that's been allowed to happen is pretty infuriating. >> It's a common sight in gas station convenience stores across the country. So-called natural supplements on display >> starting in like 2015 
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2014 had an opiate aisle. >> This is what Hooked looked like for Brandon. 250 bottles consumed in one month at the height of his addiction. There is so much that is alarming there. From the notion of a gas station having an opiate aisle to the fact that I'm just going to say it, that is too many tiny bottles of anything to go through in a month. Whether it's gas station supplements, airplane bottles of vodka, or even travel size Olay body wash. First, buy full size. Don't live like this. But also, that's just too many 
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bottles. HOW DIRTY ARE YOU GETTING? I'm worried about you. And the thing is, stories like that are becoming more common as people increasingly seek these drugs out. For some, it may be for recreational use because these products generally don't get detected on drug tests, but for others, it may be because they don't have access to health care, have a mistrust of mainstream science, or are self-treating anxiety, depression, fatigue, or opioid withdrawal. The problem is though, these drugs exist in a regulatory wild west. And in part, that is by their own 
[3:06]
design. Many of the companies behind them try to evade regulation with creative labeling, marketing them with language like for research purposes only or not for human consumption. But the most common tactic is simply labeling the product a dietary supplement. And that is because this 1994 law exempted the supplement industry from nearly all federal regulations. We actually talked about that before in our piece on Dr. Ross and nutritional supplements, which by the way ended with Steve Pashmi tap dancing in front of a kid's marching band. Just trust me, it made sense at 
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the time. But thanks to that law, there is currently no central process whereby products calling themselves supplements are tested or approved before they hit the shelves. And while there are some rules they have to follow regarding ingredients and marketing, many simply ignore them. All of which means the FDA and other regulators are essentially playing an impossible game of catchup. And the result of that can be a guy with a pile of bottles on his lawn wondering how the that was allowed to happen. And that's actually the least of the consequences here. So given all of that, 
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tonight let's look at gas station drugs. And to do that, we're going to focus on three areas in particular. Sexual enhancements products, a substance calledratum and its associated compound 70 and TNT. And let's start with the sexual enhancement stuff. Products like boner pills can be hard to miss, especially because they often have over-the-top names and packaging involving an animal. For instance, there's Black Panther, Blue Panther, Black Horse, The Goat, Super Bowl, Rammit, Gold Lion, Super Cheetah, 
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Anaconda, Rhino 8, Rhino 11, Rhino 69, of course, Rhino 96, Rhino 99, and my personal favorite, Boda Bears, which apparently contains a proprietary Bona Bear blend, a cursed series of words, and which features this image, which looks LIKE WHAT A BEANIE BABY WOULD if it walked in on its parents having sex. But boner pills actually demonstrate pretty effectively the extent to which gas station drugs can be made by just about anyone. And I do mean anyone. 
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>> It's not like there's a single company making all of these dick pills and filling them with drugs. What actually happens is that the empty packaging for many of the most common sexual enhancement supplements gets purchased online from China. Then the packages get filled by an unknown number of entities. Finally, the pills show up in stores around the country. To show how easy it is to get into the dick pill business, we ordered a sample of empty rhino packaging from Alibaba. Now, if we wanted to, we could fill them with 
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oregano or pop rocks or dirt. We could also fill the pills with natural herbal supplements as the labels advertise or pharmaceuticals, both of which are sold on Alibaba. Yeah, that's not ideal, is it? You don't want a pill's ingredients to be essentially dealer's choice. And you would never tolerate that level of variance in other products. You would be justifiably annoyed if it turned out that some Cadbury Cream eggs were filled with marinara sauce instead of what they're supposed to be filled with, the Easter Bunny's thick thick And if 
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you if YOU THOUGHT THAT CLIP WAS EXAGGERATING, just watch what happened when they bought what looks like the same pill from two different stores right here in New York. The packaging on these products was exactly the same. But when we opened the pills, it was evident there was inconsistency between the contents, colors, and textures. >> Yeah, those two powders are clearly very different. One just looks like sand, while the other looks more like cremated Snoopy. And obviously, I hope it's not that. Unless that is Snoopy's will 
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specifically directed his heirs to shove my remains into a gas station dick bill, in which case I'm thankful his final wish was fulfilled. Woodstock. May his memory be a blessing. The point is, these pills could contain literally anything, including, as they just said, actual pharmaceutical ingredients, though importantly not necessarily in careful or consistent dosages. Some rhino pills have been shown to contain selenaphil and tadalapil, the respective active ingredients in Viagra and Seialis and sometimes at extremely high doses, 
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which isn't good given that both drugs can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels, particularly if they interact with other medications. So, someone who can't get from their doctor for good reason might turn to these supplements without knowing they're about to get a mega dose of it. One pill was found to contain 14 times the amount of active ingredient contained in a seialis pill. Meanwhile, others were found to include dyes and filler like blue printer ink and drywall. So, on one hand, these pills could end up poisoning you. But on 
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the other, if your printer runs out of blue ink, just jam a few boner pills in the cartridge and you can finish printing off your Smurf porn. And because the FDA is basically par, you know, stop stop. Uh, stop stop. Take it down. Take it down. Because the FDA is basically powerless before a problem emerges, the main action it often takes is to simply offer public warnings to avoid certain products. That is why you can come across an official FDA release like this one which reads FDA continues 
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to advise consumers not to purchase or use Schwing products, which is embarrassing enough even before you realize that the release included this image of the packaging featuring the brand's mascot seen here answering the question, "What if Alfred E. Newman got heavily into gooning. The FDA's also publicly warned against, and these are all real, my steel woody, willy go wild, big penis, Australia kangaroo essence, strong horses, bull's genital, and bigger, longer, more time, more sperms, which is just immaculate. 
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AMC, please bring back Madmen because I so badly want to see an entire episode about Don Draper pitching a bigger, longer, more time, more sperms ad campaign. It's not a dick pill, it's a campaign. It's not a dick pill, it's a carousel. What I'm saying is these pills can be subject to far less oversight and be much more dangerous than you would reasonably hope. And that is also true of the next product that we're going to be looking at tonight. It's made from the leaves of theratum tree in Southeast Asia. In its natural form and smaller 
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doses, it's generally considered safe and acts as a stimulant. But in higher doses, it becomes more of a seditive with addictive opioid- like properties. Crat's become increasingly popular with millions of people estimated to use it nationwide. And it speaks to its growing popularity that at trade shows for smoke shops companies will happily brag about their expansion plans. >> This show is huge forum. Now we just got into edibles and some drinks and things like that. Jelly 70 botanicals is our newest line of gummies. 
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>> I'm with this company Hydroxy. We're a single alphoid extract company and we're going to be the strongest most purest on the market right now. >> We're the first extract enhanced powder and capsule on the market. Do we want it to be a soccer mom brand that you know just to get your energy in the morning instead of something else? You know what I mean? >> Yeah, I do know what you mean, bro. Uh, and I've got to say there's a lot that is offputting there. From the way Colby here talks about soccer moms to this guy being so wet to the unappealing flavors of cratom on display, including fresh 
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grape, mocha taffy, and Dave's brew. If your product is referring to Dave, and I don't know who the Dave is, I'm not feeling inherently confident in it. Creative products are usually marketed as an energy booster, a mood lifter, or a pain reducer. But there are a number of potential problems. Starting with the fact that because many states have no requirement for labeling when it comes to these products, it can be hard to know exactly what you are buying. When the Tampa Bay Times ran an investigation on, they tested 20 products. And while 
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some came in proper packaging like these, others like this one labeled train wreck were just powder in a bag. And if you think train wreck looks alarming, may I introduce you to red? Just red, a bag of something with the word red sharpied on it. The Times found that of the products they tested, five had no information about ingredients, 11 had no dosing instructions, and 13 had no details about potency, which probably shouldn't be that surprising given, again, one of those products was a bag of something called red. And the thing 
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is, even when products are packaged and have dosing information, the packaging itself may not encourage proper usage, as this expert points out. >> Can you read this label here? So, at the very bottom, it says to not consume more than onethird of that bottle within a 24-hour period, >> but it's sold as a shot, >> right? And that's clearly a problem because everybody knows a bottle's type dictates how you drink its contents. If it's in a tiny shot bottle, you drink it all at once. If it's in a big tall 
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bottle, you pour it into a glass. And if it's in a Budlike lime bottle, you throw it directly into the trash. These are the basic rules of beverage consumption. We even found one derived product that claims a single tablet contains eight servings mean you'd have to break it into eight pieces even though it's only scored into four. And the thing is because these products can seem low risk, people can feel way too comfortable taking much more than the recommended dose. Just listen to this ex exchange that Joe Rogan had with a 
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exchange that Joe Rogan had with a guest. >> I was on this uh discussion about cretam. Are you familiar with this? >> I'm on it right now. >> Oh wow. >> Yeah, I just took some. I I my knee up the other day. I did something and uh it's been stiff and painful. So, I iced it before I came here and then I just took uh took six of them. See what just took uh took six of them. See what happens. happens. >> Wow. >> Took 10 once. >> Now I get why people might think it's a >> Now I get why people might think it's a drug. >> Yeah, for sure. But when I took four, I was like, well, I took two for the first time I took it, I took two and a couple 
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times I took two. I'm like, this is like a mild stimulant. But then when you get into the range of 8 to 10 pills, it's like, "Oh, this this will you up." This stuff, the stuff I take is Urban Ice Organics and um See, it says it says take two. See, it says it says take two. Joe Joe Joey. Joey. Josephine, what the are you doing? You didn't even know the name of the pill or how 
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many you WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE. What did you know because it seems the main knowledge you had about those pills before taking them was that they were pills and that was apparently enough for you to happily toss half a dozen of them back. But it really is worth knowing exactly what you're ingesting and the potential dangers because the truth is products can be addictive as this woman found. Amy has been addicted toratom for nearly a decade. And she didn't buy it from a dealer or off the street. 
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Instead, she got these tiny bottles ofratom extract known as K shots from a place many of you frequent every day. >> I worked in a gas station behind my house trying not to take opiates cuz opiates are bad and it was in a little display right beside me. 90% of my money goes to this. The average price ofratom is around $15 to $25 per bottle or for the two pack of pills. Amy admits she spent more than $100,000 in one year on this substance. If you 
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think about it, that is the price of four Honda Civic LX sedans or high-end four Honda Civic LX sedans or high-end RV. I mean, >> yeah, I guess that is true. But it's also a pretty strange way to illustrate the purchasing power of $100,000. Because you don't expect the takeaway from that story to be, if this woman wasn't addicted to, she'd be rolling in Honda Civics right now. Also, for what it's worth, I don't need the news to tell me the price of high-end recreational vehicles. I'm well aware of 
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the cost. And so, by the way, is Clarence Thomas. Now a key reason someraton products have the potential for addiction is because certain components of theratum plant like metroin interact with the same receptors in your brain as opioids and while there is metroin inratum in its natural state some manufacturers will concentrate it in their products and others will go even further by synthesizing a compound fromratum called 7 hydroxygrain or 70. It's a substance that researchers have 
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found binds to the opioid receptors at least seven times stronger than morphine. As one researcher put it, the difference between naturalratum and 70 is like the difference between drinking a Miller light versus drinking 12 ounces of Everclear. Some products have now even ditched the word completely and just put 70 front and center. And sales have exploded. Here was the head of one company who expanded from CBD products to 70, marveling at just how quickly his new product line took off. >> I've truly never seen a product with the 
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type of sales this has. It it uh you know, we had a 10-year lead with Cannabis products and I've just never seen anything move like this does. We are actually doing more sales with 70 than we are all the cannabis products combined. Wow. >> And we're talking about something we've been doing for a few months versus a been doing for a few months versus a decade. >> Yeah. It turns out 708 products are as popular as that man's shirt is. Distractingly red. >> That is Vince Saunders, one of 70's 
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loudest proponents. Fun fact, he was once a car salesman/largescale illegal marijuana dealer. And even funner fact, after he was arrested in 2000, his attorney argued in court to void his prison term, citing, among other things, the tax revenue lost from having the number one Acura salesman in the US behind bars. and I shouldn't go to prison because I'm America's number one Acura salesman might be the saddest sentence of all time. Aside from I shouldn't go to prison because I'm America's number two Acura salesman. And 
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while some manufacturers position their products as pain relievers or or even as an offramp for people from more dangerous drugs, just as many seem to market them with a knowing wink to consumers about their similarity to illicit substances. There is Dopium, which is pretty on the nose, but also Opia and Perks and Bars, as well as Roxy, Droxy, and Moxy. And the addictive nature of these products can be especially rough for people like this woman who'd already been through an opioid addiction and thought in 70 that 
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she'd found something safe. >> This month, Madison McManis found herself in a place she never wanted to see again. Drug rehab. >> Really disappointed in myself. I didn't think that I would be there again. Um yeah, it was really hard, you know. Um lying in the detox for I think 3 days just catatonic. My body was just I mean everything was on fire. It hurt. I just didn't want to do it anymore. >> She was 6 and 1/2 years clean from heroin. When a friend suggested she try 
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7 to help with anxiety products like 7 to help with anxiety products like these. >> As soon as I took that 70, it was like taking heroin again for the first time. >> Wow. It was like taking heroin. Look, you expect people to say that about doing things like fentinel or watching a Halloween dog parade or getting the push alert that Henry Kissinger died. Inject that straight into my veins until I happily die. But not about taking a drug that's readily available at gas station convenience stores. In working on this 
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story, we've seen so many clips of people talking about how hard it is to quit these products. Yet some in this industry will try to direct people away from those examples and instead tell them to focus on the positive like this guy in Mississippi whose business is called Drratom. >> If you Googleratom and you Google what are the downfalls, what are the negative effects of them, that's what you're going to get is the downfalls and the negative effects of you what are the pros and the positive and the good points of what you're going to get. You got to you got to learn how to Google I mean Google nonbiasely and you'll get 
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the truth. >> Sure. But you know, you can also say that about anything, right? If you Google what are the good points of mountain lion attacks, you might find some upsides to getting mowled by a mountain lion. Though the results may also be from websites secretly made by mountain lions and then you're really just getting the mountain lions version of the truth. But the thing is, if you don't just rely on how you Google, troubling patterns do begin to emerge. When the Washington Post went through government statistics, it found that in 
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a recent three-year span, medical examiners and coroners had listed as contributing to or causing at least 4,100 deaths in 44 states and DC. Now, to be fair, most cases did involve other substances. Butratum was listed as the sole substance causing death in 182 of those cases. And there is every chance that that is an undercount given these substances are new enough that death investigations don't always test for or detectratum or 70. The fact is despite how ubiquitous these products are, they 
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really haven't been tested properly for safety as the former number one Acura salesman in the country readily admits. >> So 70 hasn't had any like human trials like for regulations or anything like like for regulations or anything like that. >> That is correct. Yeah. I mean the the human trials have been people choosing to use it. >> Look look I I hate to second guess that man. I'm afraid of the impact it would have on the global economy. But that's not how human trials work. That's just selling people then seeing what 
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happens. And what happened in his case is that the Missouri AG has sued his company for deceptively marketing 70 and as safe products. Incidentally, during that investigation, it was noted his company had recalled more than 3 million pills after a bottle of tablets that were marketed as containing 7 and a half milligs of 70 turned out to contain around 34 milligrams, over four times as much. And while apparently, I have to tell you, the company insists it makes substantial efforts to ensure its 
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products are safe and reliable, and that this appears to have been an isolated outlier. First, I think we might disagree on what the word substantial means. And that statement appears much less reassuring to me than I think they want it to sound. It's basically given 34 millig is more than double the maximum recommended dosage on the package. And double the maximum dosage is one of the more alarming reasons for a recall. It's right up there with it's actually horse meat and sometimes it just explodes. Oh Oh Another 
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one's gone. Oh, you know what? I'm sure it's fine. Elon's a genius. Now, I should say some states are taking action. For example, as of January, all of these had some form of regulation on 70 or ranging from age restrictions and labeling requirements to outright bans. But I admit this is complicated because first, as we've talked about multiple times before on this show, in general, full-on prohibition and criminalization just isn't great drug policy. And second, when it comes to this particular 
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industry, whenever one drug is banned, another can quickly take its place. All of which brings us to our final type of gas station drug, TNT. Remember that guy you saw earlier with the big pile of bottles? Those weren't. He'd already kicked an addiction to that after his state banned it, only for him to then get hooked on TNT. It's actually sold as a pharmaceutical in Europe as an anti-depressant, but has not been approved by the FDA for any medical use here. Instead, it's been marketed as a neutropic or cognitive enhancer in 
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products like Neptune's Fix, Zazar, and Tiana. And I will say it is not a great sign. The Taeptine quickly picked up this catchy nickname. >> You can find it online at convenience stores, even gas stations. But experts are sounding the alarm, calling what's in these bottles and pills, gas station in these bottles and pills, gas station heroin. >> Yeah, gas station heroin. And I know on its face that sounds like the title of a pretty good Lana Del Rey song, but it's also a real nickname for a widely available drug that can be incredibly 
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dangerous because TNT's been linked to hundreds of reports of harm, including overdoses and deaths. Alabama actually banned it a few years ago, but in true whack-a-ole style. A similar product called Frenzy quickly replaced it on shelves with at least one store there even labeling it as from the maker of Tiana. And even when states pass laws, the truth is they don't always get well enforced. Meaning that TNT still wound up sitting on shelves for people to buy. And that has led to some tragic outcomes like this story from a few years ago in 
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Ohio. It was at this Midwestern gas station that Chris Hagerty bought a bottle of Neptune's fix even though the product contained TNT banned a year earlier by the state of Ohio. >> I miss him dearly. In an interview with the IT team almost four months ago, Hagert's mother build gas station heroin as death in a bottle. >> $15 a bottle. How many people bought it besides my son? It was for sale at the gas station just 
[24:20]
right next to the lottery tickets and the cigarettes. >> Yeah, that is terrible. And it is hard to believe that something so immediately dangerous could be sold at the gas station next to lottery tickets. It'd be like finding out that PetSmart sells hand grenades next to the hamsters. Come on, PetSmart. You know, everyone always swings by the hamsters. You're getting people at their weakest point. And frustratingly, behind closed doors, some in this industry seem well aware that the products they're selling can be 
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dangerous. The reason that I know that is that one of our producers actually went to a trade show like the one you saw earlier. And to answer your first question, yeah, of course she saw a cratom themed Cyber Truck in the parking lot. Of course she saw that. You could practically hear the limp biscuit music wafting out of it. The whole convention was honestly a pretty good glimpse into an industry clearly already planning for what comes next. A lot of vendors seemed ready for 70 to be banned as they were already marketing newer products like this one whose marketing material said the future of compliant in allratum 
[25:22]
legal states 7 hydroxy replacement three to four times stronger than 70. She also spoke to a rep from a distribution company that sells boner pills who got surprisingly honest about the fact that while some of their products are kind of others could be actively dangerous. Take a listen. >> These are the gas station stuff. >> These are the gas station stuff. >> Okay. >> It's cheap. It doesn't work. Black ones are dangerous though. >> How so? >> Yeah, they are they are so potent. So, this is 200 mg. I would not advise selling these to people more than 50 years old. 
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>> Oh, okay. Okay. >> These ones are safe. >> Wow. I wouldn't advise selling these to people over 50. That is a reasonable thing to say if you're selling tickets to an Olivia Rodrigo concert, but not when you're talking about your company's unregulated dick pills. And it does feel like don't consume if you're over 50 is the kind of thing that shouldn't be whispered at trade shows, but slapped in massive lettering on your packaging. This is a photo of that man's table. And these are some of the pills that he told us were super potent. They're called Mr. 
[26:24]
bull tablets and their tagline is do it like pro. So we actually ordered some and sent them to this lab to be analyzed and they found that when that guy said the pills were super potent, he wasn't lying cuz each contained 180 milligrams of dopoxitine, that's 3 to six times the prescription dose of a drug for premature ejaculation that's not been approved for use here in the US. And they contained 270 milligrams of Seletaphil, the active ingredient in Viagra. That's nearly three times the maximum prescription dose. That is a 
[26:56]
lot. And worryingly, none of those ingredients were listed on the package, which instead claimed it's an all naturatural herbal supplement containing stuff like cinnamon bark, licorice, and deer root. All of which just sounds like the ingredients on sleepy time tea. And there is a reason that the sleepy bear isn't rocking a massive hardon on that package. So, what do we do? Well, first, take care of it. But also, RFK and his FDA director have actually been talking 
[27:28]
about the dangers of some of these products, which I guess is good. I do worry RFK is either going to say they cause autism or suggest they somehow be replaced with groundup raccoon carcass. But still, it's something. Now, unfortunately though, any good moves that they take are likely to be undermined by the fact that they've gutted the FDA, which even before they came along wasn't exactly well staffed. Meanwhile, some states are taking a more proactive approach. Missou's AG, for instance, has launched an investigation into major crater manufacturers and retailers for potentially dangerous and 
[27:58]
illegal practices. That is how they came to be suing this guy. Although it shows how slippery this industry is that he said that if 70 is banned, his company already has another product ready to replace it. Look, something clearly has to be done with this industry. The key thing is to do it very carefully because in the case of products containing 70 and TNT, a lot of people have now become dependent on them. And one thing I want to be absolutely clear about is if states are going to start banning some 
[28:29]
of these drugs, that should only happen alongside a plan to help people who cannot suddenly stop using them, whether it's because they're using them to treat pain or because they've become addicted. Because if we learned one thing from the opioid crisis is that every family fortune is built on the blood of strangers. But if we learned two things is that when you take something very strong off the market, not everyone can just quit cold turkey. So there has to be a harm reduction plan to go alongside any potential ban. And I know there are 
[28:59]
plenty of substances out there that are addictive or dangerous. Alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs. But with those things, we've tried over the years and not always perfectly to match the level of regulation around them to the level of risks they present to make sure that at the very least you know what you're getting and what risks you're taking when you choose to consume them. What we haven't done though is let it be a total freeforall where companies can just sell whatever they want to anyone who wants it and lie about what it contains. And unfortunately, right now, 
[29:30]
it's become incumbent upon all of us to make ourselves aware of the potential dangers here. Because these products can be much more addictive than you think, more powerful than you may even want them to be, and contain things you did not sign up for. So, if I may quote Joe Rogan, something I really don't love to Rogan, something I really don't love to do. It's crucial to know that this stuff could, in his words, you up. But unlike Joe Rogan, it's just as crucial to not then swallow 10 of them. Because while gas station drugs may look fun and 
[30:01]
low risk, especially when they're sold in familiar environments, the truth is you could easily wind up addicted and losing tens of Honda Civics's worth of money to them, or indeed far, far worse.