Looking for a Legal Way to Microdose? Try Microhuffing.

“I’ll be in a long meeting, and I’ll notice that I’ve wet my pants a little. It’s just a few drops, but it reminds me I’m alive.”

Happy April 1. (Chris Nesseth)

Lately, some of my Bay Area-based co-workers have gotten into “microdosing,” using small amounts of psychedelics to boost creativity and mood. I prefer to avoid controlled substances—is there a way to get similar benefits legally? —Straight Edgelord

Sadly, one man’s mindfulness-enhancement technique can all too easily become another man’s parole violation. Don’t worry, Edgelord; your secret is safe with me.

Microdosing promises a safe, scaled-down version of psychedelics’ mind-expanding effects, leading devotees of other intoxicants to wonder if those substances might also benefit from the “Honey, I Shrunk the Drugs” treatment. After all, today’s microdosers are drawn, by and large, from the ranks of yesterday’s macrodosers—years of tripping balls have primed their brains for psychedelic transformation. What about those from a different background?

Take Rob Tuttle: In college, while campus acidheads were expanding their minds with LSD and psilocybin, Rob and his fraternity brothers were enthusiastically exploring inhalants like gasoline, hair spray and certain types of metallic paint. (He still recalls one memorable Halloween party he attended as the Ether Bunny.)

Then life intervened. “After I got married, I figured my days of solvent-fueled, pants-wetting stupor were over,” Rob recalls. “I missed the thrill of pitching headfirst down a flight of stairs without ever extending my arms, and it’s a bit dull having the pupils of both eyes the same size all the time—but that’s adulthood, right?”

Then, however, Rob discovered microhuffing, and everything changed. Adherents say that even with dosages so small that a single bottle of Wite-Out can last a month, they enjoy many of the same benefits as full-scale huffers.

“I don’t do enough to feel an effect consciously,” says Rob, “but then, as the day wears on, I gradually realize that I’ve had a headache the whole time. Or I’ll be in a long meeting, and I’ll notice that I’ve wet my pants a little. It’s just a few drops, but it reminds me I’m alive.”

Rob’s wife Sharon is glad he’s happy, but isn’t sure microhuffing is for her. For now, she’s content with occasionally spinning her body one-quarter of a turn, which causes her to get very, very slightly dizzy.*

*WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS COLUMN BEFORE APRIL 1.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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