What drug did I just see?
June 5, 2012 1:17 PM   Subscribe

What kind of drug did I just see?

This afternoon I was walking over to WaWa to grab a drink when I saw a packet lying on the ground. It was a small, pink, ziplock baggie filled with white powder. The bag was about 1/2" square. I'm assuming heroin, is that most likely?
Bonus question, how much money would this packet have sold for? This is in down-town Philly.

Just idle curiosity, I'm obviously rather naive about such things.
posted by Eddie Mars to Food & Drink (11 answers total)
 
Could be coke, heroin, bath salts, baby laxative, chalk dust, or talcum.

Seriously, ditch it and go about your merry way.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:20 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Quick note, I didn't pick it up. Just curious what it was.
posted by Eddie Mars at 1:21 PM on June 5, 2012


Probably heroin...probably $10, though maybe more depending on how full the baggie was.

(Actually if you found it carelessly on the ground it was probably something being sold as heroin but was really flour or baby powder or crushed up aspirin.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:22 PM on June 5, 2012 [4 favorites]


I would have guessed coke, which I have also discovered on the street once, in one of those little baggies.
posted by spockpuppet at 1:25 PM on June 5, 2012


Meth and heroin are possibilities. So are lots of other things.
posted by Hylas at 1:26 PM on June 5, 2012


Could be meth, coke, heroin, bath salts, ketamine or MDMA, or any combination of the above, or any of a variety of fakes sold as the same.
posted by empath at 3:57 PM on June 5, 2012


Oh, and depending on what it was, if it was in a tiny baggy, anywhere between 10 and 50 dollars.
posted by empath at 3:59 PM on June 5, 2012


I'd guess meth first, especially if it was a really small amount, then coke, then heroin, but obviously it could be anything.
posted by catatethebird at 5:02 PM on June 5, 2012


It's almost certainly not bath salts. And "bath salts" aren't a drug, it's a stupid marketing term for a random assortment of cathinones and other shitty stimulants. It's almost never sold on the street because the only reason people take it is that you can buy it legally in head shops.

If it was closer to white it might be coke, brownish could be heroin, crystalline could be meth or molly. Nobody can tell you based on that description.

And for fucks sake, why doesn't this happen to me.
posted by WhitenoisE at 5:20 PM on June 5, 2012 [4 favorites]


Around here, dimes ($10) of street H (heroin) is usually sold in little balls of rolled up plastic grocery or black garbage bags, maybe 3-4mm in diameter.

Powder/crystal Molly (MDMA) is usually sold in little ziploc baggies. A dose is about the size of a small gravol tablet.

Heroin tends to be yellowish-light brown and MDMA tends to be lighter coloured. Heroin tends to look a little bit fluffier than MDMA, which is a bit fluffier looking that powder cocaine. Cocaine tends to be lighter even still. Crack cocaine typically comes as irregular pebbles, also about the size of a gravol tablet, and range in colour from off-white to something a little dirtier-brown.
posted by porpoise at 5:33 PM on June 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


In Philly, even in the nicer parts of downtown, it could be pretty much anything. When I lived there I saw some guys smoking crack (yes actual crack) next to the cab stand outside of 30th Street Station, for god's sake. I love Philadelphia more than any other American city, but it does have its share of issues.

(For the record, if it was really white and powdery, I suppose I'd lean toward coke, but it's impossible to say with any certainty.)
posted by easy, lucky, free at 9:12 PM on June 5, 2012


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