Uncontrolled Substances

When the FBI shut down the illegal narcotics exchange Silk Road, it claimed a huge victory in the effort to control online drug dealing. But the illicit business is only one part of the picture—and perhaps not even the biggest. The gray market for designer drugs and legal highs is huge, and growing all the time. It's an underground revolution full of wild and untested chemicals that has caught fire thanks to the Web and globalization. And there may be nothing anybody can do to stop it. In this painstaking MATTER investigation, journalist and author Mike Power explores the complex history of these mind-altering substances, and uncovers exactly how the system now allows almost anyone to design, commission, and manufacture their own legal high.