Has the New Cocaine Arrived?
Clubgoers across the US and Europe are increasingly using the synthetic stimulant 3‑MMC, which they describe as a milder alternative to cocaine and ecstasy. The drug, marketed as a “functional tool,” is prized for its longer duration, lower cost, and perceived lack of a strong high, leading some users to take it both on the dance floor and at work. Despite being scheduled in the EU in 2022 and the US in 2023, 3‑MMC continues to circulate, largely traced to a chemist known as Dr. Zee who has a history of creating novel cathinine‑based substances.
- ▪3‑MMC is a synthetic cathinone that users say provides a softer comedown and longer-lasting effects than cocaine or ecstasy.
- ▪It has become popular in club settings and among some professionals who use it to boost focus and stamina without feeling overtly high.
- ▪Regulators have placed 3‑MMC under control in the EU (2022) and the US (2023), yet its production remains inexpensive and discreet.
- ▪The drug’s distribution is linked to a Vancouver‑based chemist called Dr. Zee, who previously created other designer stimulants such as mephedrone.
- ▪Synthetic drugs like 3‑MMC are often cheaper to produce than traditional narcotics and can evade detection by being manufactured alongside legal pharmaceuticals.
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| Original publisher | Hacker News (Front Page) |
| Canonical URL | https://playboy.substack.com/p/has-the-new-cocaine-finally-arrived |
| Publication time | Sun, 02 Aug 2026 13:05:06 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-02T13:20:46.514Z |
| Last seen | 2026-08-02T13:20:46.514Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | None |
| Cluster logic | Not yet clustered, or no peer story found in the clustering window. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Has the New Cocaine Finally Arrived?Clubgoers are using 3-MMC to dance all night, then taking more to lock in at the office.Playboy and Michelle LhooqJul 22, 20261201116SharePhotography by Ewen SpencerThis story appears in our Summer 2026 issue, on newsstands July 28. Want us to come to your place? Become a member to get digital access to the issue and early access to paywalled content.Across American and European dance floors, clubgoers are falling in love with a designer drug called 3-MMC. Said to have a softer comedown than Ecstasy and less risk of fentanyl contamination, the synthetic stimulant is “coke without the irritation,” as one 33-year-old former regular on the European gay club circuit told me.
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