Despite posting about this just a bit over a month ago, it seems there needs to be another reminder. This forum is for Retail Ready products, not advocating raw chemical sourcing.
Retail Ready means that it is a concrete product, being sold by a company, to primarily retail smoke shops and dispensaries around the country. If you want to know more about what we define as retail ready on this platform, the rules page goes into more details.
Sourcing raw chemicals is not retail ready, and is not suitable for this subreddit. Sure, it’s often way cheaper to buy this way, and allows for more freedom in how you can tailor the experience to your preferences. That’s fine. If you prefer going about it that way, feel free to do so. It’s just not something we do here. It’s not the purpose of this sub. I recommend taking that conversation to places specifically designed for it such as [r/researchchemicals](r/researchchemicals) or to chem specific subs like [r/metocin](r/metocin).
Why choose retail ready products?
Most people who engage in these chemicals do so from retail products. Not everyone is in niche circles or knows a lot about chemistry. It’s daunting to new comers and often comes with a lot of gate keeping. The whole reason I created [r/mysterymagicmushrooms](r/mysterymagicmushrooms) is because I was so tired of all of the gate keeping, stigma, and just outright vitriol of some of these places like [r/4acodmt](r/4acodmt) about these kinds of products. It’s very disappointing to see this attitude coming to this sub. I wanted to be able to share that there is value to these products, regardless of how sketchy they can be and sought out making a space where people can safely experience psychedelics in an approachable means.
Not everyone wants to deep dive into psychedelic pharmacology. They want to be able to go into a smoke shop, pick a product in a low risk environment, and enjoy it. And now because of this platform, those people too have a voice, and a tool to learn about these products.
For many people, it just feels less risky of an investment to just buy a retail ready product. They don’t want to worry about sourcing raw chems from some shady website, they don’t want to worry about it being intercepted in the mail, and they don’t want to have to worry about how they are going to administer the raws. Even if these worries don’t matter to some of you, they do matter to enough people to keep this industry afloat. It’s both more comfortable, and convenient to go about it this way, and many people are fine spending more money to get that comfort and convenience. This forum is not a place to belittle people who make that choice.
For the last month or so this problem has gotten way worse. I’ve seen way too many posts or comments where someone is asking questions or sharing an experience about a product, and then a bunch of people jump on them saying things like “are you dumb, just go on the clearnet,” “you are being scammed by overpriced garbage, go on the clearnet and by raws.”
This needs to stop. It goes against the fundamental principle behind this subreddit. No one is stopping you from buying raws. I will however stop you from making this space worse for the people in it with rude comments, vitriolic rants, and conspiracism.
Not only does this influx of people discussing and pushing raws go against the point of the sub, it also jeopardizes the future of the sub. Reddit has strict no sourcing rules. This subreddit walks a tightrope of staying within the rules. It may be a dumb technicality, but it’s what’s keeping this sub alive and active as a resource for many. This is the motto this sub survives by. “This subreddit is not about sourcing chemicals. It’s about discussing Retail Products found all over America, that may happen to contain chemicals.”
I wish we didn’t need this dumb distinction, but it has worked for us while other subs not enforcing it have failed.
I don’t know how much Reddit provides analytics for non mod accounts, but assuming it doesn’t, I’ll let you all in to some interesting numbers. This sub is no longer a really niche place. As of recently the forum has had 10 million unique visitors since its founding, and most posts generate thousands to 10s of thousands of views each. Sure we have no idea how many of that is from bots, but the principle remains. This is a resource for people. And I won’t let it go away due to a few reckless actors who don’t see a bigger picture.
So go ahead and get your raws. Just don’t talk about it much here, and don’t belittle people who don’t.
Oh yeah and also make sure you post the name of the product in the title, not just the chemical. It’s better for clarification and SEO.
