This is an official statement by DoctorX & his Chemical Brothers and Sisters.

1.- Harm Reduction, Drug Checking and Cryptomarkets:

Our International Drug Checking Service was launched in 2014 to expand Energy Control’s core Harm Reduction strategy worldwide. Cryptomarket users have been one of our main goals and in this period Energy Control International has gained enough reputation to be considered a trustworthy source of information.

The acceptance of Drug Checking Services (DCS) in International Drug Policy is, slowly but clearly, increasing worldwide. However, DCS have to adhere to some strict criteria. One of them is that “final drug users“ is the specific target to whom this intervention is directed. Any single, specific test result is only representative for the sample the user provides us.

Things are more complicated in cryptomarkets. We insist in the idea that “a test result is only representative of a sample and can’t be used as guarantee of a vendor or product”.

 2.- Drug Checking codes and vendors:

But we inevitably receive samples from vendors. And some vendors make these results public, announcing their products as “EC tested”, and providing the (alleged) test result and the lab code.

Some vendors even invite users to contact us in our address to verify the result, a service that we have never announced we offer or proposed.

We want to clarify that this is not a general complaint against all vendors who test their products with our IDCS. We believe that the potential of vendors and cryptomarkets administrators as relevant harm reduction agents should be considered and evaluated.

We know vendors who check drugs to dismiss the presence of adulterated or toxic simples and to provide users accurate information to minimize the risk of intoxication. In our monitoring cryptomarkets activity, we have detected some vendors that announce in their pages that they are checking every new batch of their products, and the results that they publish are consistently updated and coherent with our databases. We insist in the fact that we cannot serve as a guarantee of a specific sample composition, but the above example has big differences with other situations we have detected, where vendors advertise their products as “Energy Control tested” as an implied endorsement.

3.- Specific problems found with codes provided by vendors in cryptomarket products:

The following are worrying phenomena we’ve observed:

1) Information provided by vendor is incoherent with our techniques.

StereoIsomers are molecules that are identical in shape, structure, and composition but with different “orientations” of the pieces of the molecule. For example, symmetrical (like  your two hands, left and right; same shape, structure and composition, but a mirror image). In some psychoactive compounds, one of the two isomers is more potent or even has different properties. Ketamine is a typical example, with S-Ketamine different to R-Ketamine.

However, in our webpage you will not find that “isomer detection and quantification” is a service provided in our laboratory. This technique is difficult, expensive and not currently available for us. Although we are working on being able to offer this service, at this time we are unable to provide  the exact stereoisomer composition of a sample. As such, it is impossible that an Energy Control test result indicates “S-“ or “R-“ , and when seen in market listings it should be attributed to an excessive imagination of vendors when they interpreted our results.

2) Transcription problems

In some cases, the information about drug checking result available in vendor products (available through codes provided in their pages) is different to the code result in our database. By some strange, unknown cause, data in vendors pages are often around 10% higher than test results provided.

E.g.. Vendor SomeFakeVendor announces in his shop:

• MDMA 83%. No adulterants. (lab tested Energy Control. Code: XXXX1111)
• Meth 85%. No adulterants. (lab tested Energy Control. Code: XXXX2222)
• Cocaine 74%  (lab tested Energy Control u. Code: XXXX3333)

In our database, we find that these three codes exist, but the real test results are:

• XXXX1111. MDMA 73%. No adulterants
• XXXX2222. Meth 75%. No adulterants.
• XXXX3333. Cocaine 63%. No adulterants.

3) Selective publishing of results ( vendors offering only one substance)

Some vendors offer just one product, announce it as “EC lab tested” and code provided and test result (in general, very high purity) is the same in our databases.

The problem arises when a more thorough search in our database reveals different samples associated to the same email addresses.

E.g. AnotherFakeVendor offers in his Nightmare Market account “EC lab tested 95% purity cocaine” in different quantities (1-2-5-10-100 grams). The lab code he provides (VVVV5555) is coincident with test result in our databases.

This result was associated to the email fakevendor@fake.com. The email is the only potentially personally identifying data we collect, and is only used to communicate results to the user, never shared with third parties and especially protected by GDPR EU laws.

Although only one result was shared on markets, in the past three months we have received 5 samples associated to that email address.

 We do not know anything else about Fakevendor. They could be an honest vendor in search of the best cocaine available to sell in their shop, discarding lower purity results. However, they could instead be a vendor that published one code but is selling samples of different batches or qualities. Maybe they are not even a vendor, but their five sisters are, and unbeknownst to Fakevendor, they sent the samples using the same email address.

Nevertheless, like in the previous example, a strange coincidence makes it so that only the most pure result is published.

4) Selective published results (vendors offering several substances)

We have found some vendors that offer different products in their shops. But only some of them appear as “EC lab tested”.

Test results and provided codes by vendors are equal to our databases but vendors only publish high purity and/or adulterated results. In all cases detected there were no toxic or dangerous adulterated in non-published results , only low purities.

E.g. LastFakevendor offers in her own private vendor .onion shop

MDMA paella shaped pills 145 mg. (lab tested Energy Control. Code: PPPP0001)

Cocaine. High quality!!! Just arrived from ColombiaKetamine 87%  pure (lab tested Energy Control. Code: PPPP0003)

Heroin . Use with caution. Very strong effectLSD 120 micrograms (lab tested Energy Control. Code: PPPP0005)

In our database we find  these codes,  all associated to the same email address:

 We have detected 3 cases like this. The conclusion drawn regarding the intentions and/or usefulness of posting the results depends on the point of view. You may say that at least he took the effort to test her samples. You may also say that It is a bit cheeky to publish only the good ones, but it’s another example that a test result is not representative for a vendor.

5) “EC tested” and “high purity” do not mean “safe”

Our test results are not only a substance or a percentage. We try to open a communication channel with users, to solve their questions and provide advice. Say a vendor offers “ methoxetamine lab tested by EC” but forgets to mention our warning and advice about new molecules, with very limited research in humans and risks and harms from its use potentially much higher than other substances.

Besides, we are not able to quantify methoxetamine, we can only detect its presence In a sample. In this particular example we can even dismiss that the vendor offers “pure methoxetamine” as there is no code provided to search in our database

6) Inadequate use of our brand and logo.

The use of the “Energy Control” logos and brand in pictures or names of vendors obviously wants to imply some partnership or association from Energy Control with vendors named things like “EControl” or “Energycontrolled”. This partnership does not exist, but these anecdotal examples would be very appreciated if an Anti Drug professional wanted to show the dangers of organizations like us, and that Harm Reduction only leads to promoting drug use.

Ok. We accept that no cryptomarket has to prohibit vendors from using our name, but this situation is extremely uncomfortable for us. So we kindly request to vendors not to choose nicks that contain our name and not to use our brand or logos without authorization. A particular note for vendor “EnergyControlled”: Please pay more attention to your keyboard while typing. Concentrations and purities provided in your vendor page are systematically higher than test results offered by us, according to public codes and our databases.

7) Paleolithic codes

We have changed our code system this year, but we have used combinations of 4 letters and numbers to identify samples since 2015. We still find vendors that use codes from samples tested in 2016.

Some of these vendors offer their products in amounts greater than 100 grams and/or process hundreds of orders every month. Maybe their batch is as big as an Egyptian Pyramid, or maybe they are using their old EC code as a decoration for their vendor shop.

We insist in the idea that this report is not a complaint against vendors that use our Drug Checking Service. But we want to clarify that providing a code or advertising a product as “tested by Energy Control” can´t be used as a  guarantee for any market, vendor o product. We think that (at least some) vendors have a great potential as harm reduction agents. We are studying strategies to promote this role without breaking current legal framework and how to avoid inadequate use of our test results. We are open to cryptomarkets community ideas, suggestions, opinions and criticisms.