Written by: Jermaine Galloway
Date: May 13, 2024
Recent community scans conducted by Tall Cop have unveiled concerning insights into emerging drug trends. From store clerks enticing customers with 2-for-1 deals to notable discounts on a range of over-the-counter drugs, the prevalence of available products is staggering. In the first five months of 2024 alone, I've conducted over 30 separate community scans, visiting more than 500 stores nationwide. Several things stand out…
First, Tianeptine's popularity is at an all-time high. I have found more Tianeptine in the past year than I had located in the previous six years combined. Not only are more stores carrying it, but I am also finding more varieties of quantity and (non-traditional) brands of Tianeptine. Make sure to check out my Tianeptine bulletin and listen to my podcast. Along with Tianeptine, Kratom's popularity is on the rise with various forms of over-the-counter shrooms, and most of all VAPES!
Second, vapes now take up 20% or more of all the drugs I find in smoke shops across the country. The vapes include nicotine, low-level delta 9 THC, and products such as Delta, 8, 10, HHC, etc. Not only is there a large quantity of vapes, but the number of “puffs” or hits has increased tremendously. If you can remember back to 2020, vapes that contained a large amount of “hits” ranged around 1,200 total. This would have been on the high end of puffs. Today, it's uncommon to come across a vape device with a limited number of hits, as most now start around 5,000 hits and extend even further. For perspective, I've encountered vapes boasting up to 25,000 hits, with the price increase not proportionally reflecting this significant surge in “hits”.
These factors are drawing a clear picture of what summer drug trends and the increase of these trends will look like.