Comment by bperson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bperson | Hacker News Reader

Can I show you how to read the news? It goes like this...

- A drug from a car part??? What's in a catalytic converter?

- Google says: platinum (Pt), along with palladium (Pd), and rhodium (Rh). All three of these platinum group metals, or PGMs

- Is there a site that talks about every drug known? Yes, erowid.org

- Google: site:erowid.org platinum | palladium | rhodium

- Relevant Hit: "Palladium/Platinum Catalyst Preparation FAQ"

  https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pd-catalyst.faq.html

Which leads to...

Da da da ta da!

- Rhodium Archive Snapshot from August, 2004. Last Updated Mar 31, 2009

https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/

2004 folks, 2004. Now, you can read all about what is in these drug cocktails and how recreational and professional drug designers ply their trade.

That's how you read the news. You don't need to post wondering "what could be going on???" The author of the article didn't bother to include "there are indications that the active ingredient could be an element in the platinum group metals, maybe rhodium. The are signs of illicite designer drug research around these metals going back as far as 2004." But, it doesn't mean we need to wander around in the headspace of a casual current event type of world news piece. Just go get the answer and in so doing you get perspective on the designer drug industry and how this particular cocktail came about.

The link you've provided doesn't discuss the use of rhodium as a drug, it's the archive of a site named "rhodium" that was used for discussing drugs...

I don't know how these catalysts are interacting with bombe, but the active ingredients seem to be well known, from the article: "tramadol, dolarene, nitrile, ampicillin and, in some cases, traces of heroin". So basically opiods mixed with those platinum group metals you mentioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hive_(website)

Different sense of the word Rhodium there I think.

Between the platinum getting stolen and sold, the platinum getting stolen and used by dealers to prepare some drug and the platinum getting put into a street drug so it can be used in a reaction by users, I'm gonna go with the platinum getting stolen and sold.

The rhodium archive isn’t about drug preparations with the element rhodium, it’s a defunct drug synthesis website (rhodium.ws) that was run by the user Rhodium.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hive_(website)

Since rhodium is incredibly expensive, I would assume that they are extracting what the catalytic converters are capturing and ingesting that.

Their whole post is wildly ironic on so many levels. They barely read the article which did specifically mention the chemicals they claim the article never mentions:

“ The car parts contain deposits like zinc oxide, platinum and rhodium. A laboratory in Antwerp, Belgium is taking a look at the effect of each individual component.”

And then their whole “how to read the news” leads you to absolutely useless information that provides no illumination.

Their entire post is like a replication of exactly what they think is wrong with the news but as a HN comment. Maybe it’s some kind of deeply clever parody…

What are you on about? Rhodium was the name of one of those old school knowledge base websites and I have no idea what hit you got on palladium but it seems to be involved in synthesis.

Ironically if you had actually checked what you linked you wouldve seen there's no discussion of rhodium as a drug but simply an archive that happens to have the name rhodium with information about unrelated drugs.

Catalytic converters are stolen frequently even in Europe for their Pt and Pd content, so my guess would be that these guys are snorting exhaust residues, not precious metals.

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