Methcathinone

What are the street names/slang terms for it?

Bathtub speed, Cadillac express, Cat, Ephedrone, Gagers, Gaggers, Goob, Jeff, Mulka, Speed, The C, Wild cat Wonder star

What is it?

Methcathinone is a dangerous addictive drug that is cheap and easy to manufacture. The drug is made from a mixture of battery acid, Drano, and over-the-counter asthma medication and can be manufactured in home kitchens.

What does it look like?

Methcathinone is a white or off-white crystalline powder.

How is it used?

The most common means of taking methcathinone is snorting. Other routes of administration include taking it by mouth mixed in a liquid such as coffee or soft drinks, intravenous injection, and smoking it either in a crack pipe or added to tobacco or marijuana cigarettes. Methcathinone is often used in binges lasting from two to six days, during which methcathinone is used repeatedly.

What are its short-term effects?

Short-term effects of methcathinone include: stimulation of heart rate and respiration; feeling of euphoria; loss of appetite; increased alertness, dilated pupils, and temperature may be slightly elevated. Acute intoxication at higher doses may also result in insomnia, tremors and muscle twitching, fever, headaches, convulsions, irregular heart rate and respirations, anxiety, restlessness, paranoia, hallucinations and delusions.

What are the long-term effects?

While research on the long-term effects of methcathinone use is just beginning in the United States, anecdotal reports from users in treatment in this country, and from published research in Russia, paint a similar picture. Chronic use of methcathinone produces a range of problems typical of addiction to powerful stimulant drugs including paranoia and delusions, hallucinations, including a sensation of bugs crawling under the skin, anxiety followed by depression, tremors and convulsions, anorexia, malnutrition, and weight loss, sweating, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance, stomach pains and nausea, nose bleeding and eventual destruction of nasal tissues and erosion of the nasal septum, elevated blood pressure and heart rate body aches. In addition, following a binge, users report a "crash" that often includes severe psychological depression, and suicide ideation. In extreme cases, deaths have been reported, and are related to heart failure, lethal overdoses, drug-related violence, and manufacturing accidents.

What is its federal classification?

Methcathinone is classified as a Schedule I drug.

Source: Indiana Prevention Resource Center (IPRC)