These Instagram Ads Sure Seem to Be Selling Cocaine Accessories
Key takeaways
- Today, millions of Americans can buy their pot legally in places that resemble Apple Stores or take powerful psychoactive substances in plush therapeutic settings.
- Though you might not instantly see them as drug paraphernalia, on closer inspection, many of these products are offering to serve a need that no real person has ever had.
- The visual comparison with a resealable plastic bag containing whitish electrolyte power should make it clear what is seemingly being suggested here.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photograph: hiroyuki nakai/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Big money and powerful interests have entirely rebranded drugs like cannabis, mushrooms, and ketamine in the 21st century.
Today, millions of Americans can buy their pot legally in places that resemble Apple Stores or take powerful psychoactive substances in plush therapeutic settings. Cocaine, however, has yet to see the kind of tech-fueled makeover that changed the public perception of those drugs—but these luxury products in my Instagram feed may just give it a glow-up.
Though you might not instantly see them as drug paraphernalia, on closer inspection, many of these products are offering to serve a need that no real person has ever had. Consider, for example, this video demonstrating use of a SLYD pouch, a small leather pocket with a magnetic clasp. The ad shows a person loading a small quantity of a powdered substance into the $39 pouch, and a caption exhorts the viewer: “Stop using that sketchy bag for your electrolytes.”