Shockingly Accessible Euphoria

Chronos — July 21, 2022

Dealers of “designer” butyrate have taken over Avito and Wildberries

Authors: Hunter Melrose, Eco, Partizan, Herold

Darknet marketplaces are far from the only places where illegal substances are sold. Right now, anyone in Russia can buy a butyrate analog through Avito or Wildberries, without digging up hidden stashes or worrying about the police.

Butyrate in Russia: A Legendary Substance

There was a time when YouTube users posted videos of people under the influence of drugs, labeling them as being on butyrate, regardless of the actual symptoms. “Butyrate” became a catch-all term for any substance that made people act strangely. Those days are long gone, but butyrate — albeit with some “molecular” tweaks — remains. The Chronos team conducted an investigation to show what the modern butyrate analog trade looks like, who runs it, how legal it is, and why using this psychoactive substance can be life-threatening.

What Is Butanediol and Why Do People Drink It?

“From experience, I can say this is in my top three substances for sex,” Viktor (name changed) told Chronos about his use of butanediol. “It heightens tactile sensations and gives a subjective feeling of intoxication. It’s much more pleasant than alcohol and lasts about an hour.”

For some, the effects of butanediol last much longer — up to three and a half hours, according to trip reports on Erowid — and are more similar to butyrate than alcohol. This is not surprising: when taken orally, butanediol reacts with “alcohol” enzymes in the liver and stomach lining, which convert it into butyrate within a minute. The subjective effects depend largely on the levels of these enzymes, making the experience closer to alcohol or pure butyrate. A similar process occurs with gamma-butyrolactone.

“When I drank it with my girlfriend, there were two or three times when she fell asleep and didn’t respond to slaps or shaking, only to her name, and then she’d fall asleep again. While sleeping, she barely breathed,” Viktor continued. “I gave her a 50 ml bottle, and she and her friends finished it at a rave in a couple of days. One of them drank to the point of unconsciousness and had to be sent home in a taxi.”

The next day, the girl fully recovered and felt no significant changes in her body — to her, it all just felt like sleep.

The Black Market for Butanediol

Viktor said he used to buy butanediol and butyrate on darknet marketplaces, but was disappointed: out of six “dead drops,” he only found half, as most were hidden in forests for so long that the landscape changed, making them hard to find.

Now, after the shutdown of Hydra, there aren’t many butyrate, butanediol, or gamma-butyrolactone offers on post-Soviet drug marketplaces. Major drug shops avoid them, preferring to sell more popular products like mephedrone, a-PVP, and cannabis. Butyrate is mostly found in small shops that mainly sell pharmaceuticals.

On July 19, our analysis of marketplaces and forums found butyrate and its analogs available at:

• BlackSprut — 35 shops
• Mega — 23 shops
• Solaris — 9 shops
• OMG — 6 shops
• SuperNova and RuTor — 2 shops
• Matanga and o3shop — 1 shop each

Butanediol sales are mainly concentrated on “white” (legal) marketplaces.

The Butanediol Market on Avito

Viktor said he bought his butanediol on Avito. For 4,000 rubles, he ordered a liter, divided into 50 ml bottles, and picked it up easily, no forest trips required. At a standard dose of 2-3 ml, Viktor called it a “virtually endless supply.”

Currently, two companies sell butanediol on Avito: BdoBASF and ReaKhim PRO. Both have only positive reviews. BdoBASF offers both retail and wholesale: from 800 rubles for 100 ml to 100 liters at 2,200 rubles per liter. ReaKhim PRO only sells wholesale.

There are also over 200 private listings on Avito, offering butanediol delivery to various Russian cities, both retail and wholesale, at prices similar to the companies above. Most sellers market butanediol as a solvent or cleaning agent, but some openly state it’s for recreational use.

Each private seller averages at least 1,000 views per listing.

The Butanediol Market on Wildberries

Viktor didn’t buy butanediol on Wildberries, saying prices are high and comparable to the black market. On July 14, Wildberries had two butanediol listings: a retail 50 ml bottle for 800 rubles, and a wholesale 50-liter batch for 165,000 rubles.

The 50 ml product, sold by “Satori,” had over 200 purchases. Satori only sells this one product and previously offered liter-sized bottles, according to their Telegram channel. The wholesale listing, from “Plastmass Group” (a registered Russian plastics manufacturer), had no sales data and disappeared from the catalog four days later, possibly sold outside Wildberries.

Reviews for Satori are mostly positive, with buyers praising its effectiveness as a paint remover, claiming 3 ml is enough to “remove stains to music” or clean their “paint guns.” Some reviews, however, openly state the product is being used recreationally. Satori responds by insisting it’s just a degreaser and paint remover, denying any knowledge of psychoactive properties. But a look at their Telegram chat leaves little doubt about the true target audience and the seller’s awareness.

Is This Legal?

Butanediol is included in Table II of Russia’s list of controlled precursors. Free circulation is only allowed at concentrations below 15%; anything higher is banned. All butanediol offers on Wildberries and Avito are 99% concentration or higher.

However, the penalties are not as severe as for narcotics. Possession is fully decriminalized — users face no state sanctions. Only sellers are penalized: individuals face fines of 1,500–2,000 rubles, companies 30,000–40,000 rubles. In practice, this means sellers face little risk, even if law enforcement takes notice. For example, Satori could make half a million rubles from one wholesale batch and only face a painful but non-critical fine.

Supply Chains Lead Back to Hydra’s Liquidators

Plastmass Group lists German company BASF as the butanediol manufacturer. BASF is also the main supplier for BdoBASF and most Avito private sellers. ReaKhim PRO claims its butanediol comes from Germany’s Ashland.

Should the Ukraine conflict or a sudden law enforcement crackdown disrupt these supply chains, the butanediol market would still survive, according to a chemist-consultant from the Pharmdeground project. Butanediol can be synthesized from scratch, even at home, without special equipment. The main challenge is obtaining 1,4-dichlorobutane, which is easier to get as a gas. The process involves hydrolyzing the appropriate chloralkane until the characteristic odor disappears. Synthesizing butanediol is safer than butyrate, which can become toxic if made improperly. However, precursors are only available to legal entities monitored by authorities.

Health Risks

An addiction specialist who runs the Paragnomen channel told Chronos that Viktor’s raver friends got off easy — things could have ended much worse.

“First of all, [butanediol] is neurotoxic. Poisoning causes brain swelling and depressed consciousness up to coma, as well as seizures up to status epilepticus,” the doctor said. “It’s also cardiotoxic. Acute intoxication leads to low blood pressure, sometimes requiring vasopressors in intensive care, and a slowed pulse, even cardiac arrest. It can also be a pulmonotoxicant, or breathing may be secondarily affected due to coma and aspiration of stomach contents. Intoxication often requires mechanical ventilation.”

These are acute reactions. With long-term use, users may develop mixed-genesis encephalopathy, which manifests as memory and intelligence decline, speech disorders, mood swings, sleep problems, or even chronic seizures. Internal organs can also be affected, causing shortness of breath and exercise intolerance.

“I wouldn’t rule out conduction system disorders in the heart, reduced exercise tolerance, and early development of persistent cardiopathology,” the doctor added. “Lung damage can cause fibrosis (scarring) and reduced ventilation. The liver and kidneys are also likely to suffer, potentially leading to organ failure requiring dialysis and liver replacement.”

Epilogue

Overall, the butanediol market resembles the synthetic drug epidemic in Europe. Just as substituted (designer) cathinones were sold as “bath salts,” the butyrate analog — butanediol — is now sold as a “paint remover.” The difference is that butanediol at the concentrations sold on Wildberries and Avito is illegal, yet neither the platforms nor law enforcement are doing anything to stop it.

Perhaps that’s for the best. As long as psychoactive substances are supplied via European countries, users can at least hope for some quality control. If the market is destroyed, users won’t disappear — they’ll switch to other substances or to “import-substituted” butanediol, which, despite being easy to synthesize, is unlikely to be made safely.

Other Investigations by Chronos:

• “Millions on Servers”: How Much Did Dmitry Pavlov Make Before Being Known as Hydra’s Creator
• “Shadow Ornithology”: How RuTor’s Admins Tried to Warn Everyone About the Forum’s Sale

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