Over the course of two months, five friends traveled 12,000 miles with their cameras. Your order? Exposes the proliferation of unregulated and misrepresented medicines and research chemicals, and puts the spotlight on grossly incompetent national drug policies. what’s in my bag Documenting the journey and the amazing discoveries along the way.
The filmmakers scouted for massive youth gatherings in an environment where experimental drug use was commonplace, and chose the most popular regional music festivals. They bring chemical detection kits that can be used to quickly identify any test substance. In most cases, these young people are buying drugs that are nothing like what they think they are. MDMA samples are usually identified as bath salts. Other drugs were tested as unknown substances without names.
This conundrum may seem trivial on the surface, but it actually poses a serious danger to users of psychotropic substances. Gone are the days when drug culture was filled with the six pillars of cocaine, marijuana, and LSD. Today, illicit substances are easily chemically processed, turned into any of countless variants, and sold to unsuspecting young people with little regard for the consequences. Of the dozens of drug users interviewed for the film, most were unaware of the dangers or existence of such testing kits.
Throughout the film, doctors, law enforcement, various aid agencies and traffickers of these substances further illustrate the crisis. These psychoactive drugs are so widely distributed, and their appearance is so indistinguishable from other known substances, that regulators are trying to catch up. Retailers themselves are aware of this dilemma and are taking advantage of it by deliberately selling fraudulent products at inflated prices.
what’s in my bag Many see this as a realistic view of drug use among young people. From a filmmaker’s point of view, given the right conditions and support, a large proportion of young people are likely to experiment with drugs. The movie does a valuable service by pleading for more caution and education.
