Be fascinating to hear more about how that actually works; or is it a fabrication by police or drug manufacturers? What mechanism of action would a bunch of metal and exhaust particulate possibly have to produce drug-like effects?

I'm with you; it does kind of sound like a drug-panic story.

The article does suggest that bombé is made from conventional drugs and basically cut with converter residue, so perhaps the residue slightly modifies its chemistry. Or it might do nothing at all; I'd be surprised if there's been a blind study comparing the effects of bombé made with cat residue to the same made with, say, clay.

I bet they just found a bunch of catalytic converter materials at the drug "lab" and jumped to conclusions. They are just having addicts steal the cats to pay for the drugs.

In case it's not a fabrication/not a lacing with conventional drugs , my very uneducated guess: the crushed catalysators contain nanoparticles which cross the blood-brain barrier easily

After reading news about such unusual substance abuse being increasingly popular in Congo recently, I have actually thought that this is the main reason behind catalytic converters' thefts all over.

But it's still rare metals thieves are after so I assume the substance abuse popularity may grow outside Congo.

That was a really interesting article, thanks for sharing.

Im convinced that the active component is the soup of organics in the cat.

A bit how pine/coal tar was used to make just about every chemical 100 years ago.

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