Poppers have always operated in a legal gray zone. Now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is cracking down on their production.
This week, many major poppers brands began wiping their websites and social media presences. On Friday, Double Scorpio, a popular isobutyl nitrite brand, posted a statement on its website.
“Double Scorpio has stopped all operations following a search and seizure at our offices by the FDA,” it wrote.
Poppers, which are packaged in liquid form and inhaled for a brief euphoric effect, generally need to be prescribed. Still, many manufacturers skirt the law by using alternate chemical formulas and advertising as nail polish remover and leather cleaner. The drug is most popular with LGBTQ+ consumers, something Robert F. Kennedy Jr., current head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has taken aim at. In his 2021 book, Kennedy spread the lie that poppers caused AIDS.
Now his department oversees the FDA, which is part of HHS.
‘We don’t have a lot of information to share’
In its statement, Double Scorpio signaled an industry-wide crackdown. “We don’t have a lot of information to share but we believe that the FDA has performed similar actions towards other companies recently,” the brand wrote.
Two merchants who spoke with Fast Company anonymously to discuss information that wasn’t public confirmed that additional producers have also been affected by the apparent crackdown.
“As a matter of policy, the FDA does not comment on possible criminal investigations,” an FDA spokesperson wrote to Fast Company.
Meanwhile, other brands have gone entirely silent or wiped their web presence. Pac-West Distributing (PWD), one of the producers of Rush, has replaced its website with a single graphic. It also shut down its phone number. Nitro-Solv, an online poppers retailer that advertised on PWD’s site, has also since shut down.
AFAB Industrial, another producer of Rush, has been the most public-facing of these producers. Its owner, Everett Farr, sat for an interview with BuzzFeed News in 2021, even as business associates worried about an FDA warning. (“Why bring attention to yourself?” one asked the outlet.) But AFAB has gone radio silent, too, shutting down its email and denying a request for comment over the phone.
Are poppers legal?
Once prescribed for chest pain to increase blood flow, poppers grew popular with LGBTQ+ people starting in the 1960s. Since then, their influence has ballooned, also becoming a popular party drug. While the United States has some rules about the production and distribution of poppers, they are rarely enforced.
In the late 1960s, the FDA classified amyl nitrites as a prescription drug after observing recreational use. Many producers pivoted to producing butyl nitrites, which were banned over a decade later in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. Isopropyl nitrites were banned two years later, but with an exception for commercial purposes, hence why many sellers masquerade as VCR cleaners or liquid incenses.
But the FDA has been sparse with its crackdowns, save for a few advisories. In 2021, the FDA posted a warning for consumers not to ingest or inhale poppers. Two years later, it launched a social media campaign advising consumers on the difference between Rush and 5-Hour Energy bottles. This lack of enforcement has led many poppers brands, like Rush, Double Scorpio, and Jungle Juice, to create yearslong market dominance.
What has RFK said about poppers?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now runs the Department of Health and Human Services, which the FDA sits under. But Kennedy has long been spreading scientific misinformation about LGBTQ+ people, including that chemicals in the water are affecting children’s sexualities. Some of these falsehoods also concerned poppers.
In his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy cited Peter Duesberg, a leader in AIDS denialism. Duesberg theorized that “heavy recreational drug use” caused immune deficiency in gay men, specifically linking the spread of AIDS to the usage of poppers.
This theory has long been discredited; in 2008, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that HIV causes AIDS.
No comments