We asked ravers what drugs they were taking over a weekend

Sometimes I wonder what it would look like if you walked into a bar or a rave and everyone’s illegal narcotics were laid out on a table. The contents of punters’ wallets, socks and underwear revealed for all to see, baggies filled with pills and powders piled high.

But the only time you ever see that is when a club gets raided and everyone chucks all their drugs on the floor, because people are usually very good at stashing their baggies away from the prying eyes of bouncers and police officers, or the nosy nostrils of sniffer dogs.

There are other ways to find out what people are using to alter their states of mind, though – like going to a Sunday morning warehouse party in North London and asking people to show you what drugs they have and how they’re going to consume them. It’s not quite an in-depth anthropological study into people’s habits on the sesh, but it offers some insight…

“I got the weed from a guy on Telegram. It was £45 for 3.5g. They said it was ​‘loose Cali’ [imported from California but coming ​‘loose’, eg. just buds without the fancy packaging synonymous with California imports]. It’s an indica-dominant hybrid strain, a cross between Zkittlez and Permanent Marker. Do I really think it’s imported? Probably not. But it’s banging weed for an extra tenner compared to average weed. You end up getting a taste for it. The pill is from a local dial-a-dealer, it was a tenner.”

A bit of advice: When you take a pill, don’t drink too much or too little water. According to The Loop, you should​“aim to drink around half a pint (250ml) per hour.”

“They’re both 2C‑B, I had them left over in my room. [They give you] subtle visuals, like lights trailing off when you move your head, but not like the drastic sensory overload that you can have with stronger psychedelics like LSD or DMT. And it’s nowhere near the same level of time commitment because it only lasts for about four hours.”

A bit of advice: ​“Similar to all psychedelics, the psychological risks of 2C‑B can be minimised by ​‘set and setting’,” DrugScience says. ​“Ensuring that both your mindset is stable and well prepared, and that the environment is comfortable and safe.”

“It’s a nasal spray with a gram of K in it. At first I bought one off a dealer for £40, but I make it myself now. The liquid is saline solution. I bought a big bottle of that and a bottle of nasal spray from the supermarket and just dumped a gram of K in it. I clean and re-use the same bottle. The bottle is 15ml. I did the maths and copied the ratio from the dealer – it makes about the right strength. It’s really discreet in clubs and one spray gets you a bit waved.”

A bit of advice: It’s best to not mix ket with other drugs. ​“People who die or end up in hospital [due to ketamine] almost always have combined it with other drugs, particularly alcohol,” DrugScience says. ​“Taking ketamine with stimulants (such as cocaine and ecstasy) may overload your heart. Taking it with depressants (such as alcohol or GBL [or GHB] may make you become unexpectedly unconscious and can stop your breathing or allow you to suffocate on your own vomit.”

“I went in halves on half a gram of coke for £50 – two of us will easily polish that off in one night. I’m trying to quit, to be honest. This is my first bag in ages. With pills, if they’re really strong, I’ll take, like, a third and wait like an hour, or an hour and a half, and take another third. It’s usually kicked in by then. But it depends on how strong they are, you know?”

A bit of advice: Nicholas Calder, an ear, nose and throat consultant at NHS Lanarkshire, says that you could potentially reduce some of the harms of snorting drugs by washing out your nostrils with saline rinses or saltwater before you go to sleep.

“This is what’s left of a gram of hash I bought for a tenner last week. That much does actually get me stoned. It’s just a little joint for the end of the night.”

A bit of advice: If you’re smoking hash or weed and are likely to get on the munchies, have some healthy food on hand so you don’t plough through a full multi-pack of Space Raiders at 11pm. ​“There’s compounds in mango that can actually enhance the high of cannabis,” according to Guy Jones at The Loop, ​“and it’s quite a healthy food to have around.”

“I nibble the [ecstasy] pill and 2C‑B together – 2C‑B is just a trippier version of MDMA anyway. I won’t take all of that speed, just a couple of keys later on when I start lagging. Speed is like Take That, coke is the Beatles. It’s cheap [£10 per gram] and cheerful. It doesn’t really get you high but keeps you going.”

A bit of advice: Using multiple drugs at once – known as ​“polydrug use” – can increase the risks, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. ​“Interactions can occur between substances,” they say. ​“For example cocaine and alcohol, which can exacerbate the risks associated with using either substance in isolation.”

“It’s MD[MA], I swapped it for some ket with my mate because he was going home. I’ll have a couple of bombs [putting a dose in a rizla and swallowing it]. I used to use it more often, but the comedowns got bad, so now I only take it once in a blue moon.”

A bit of advice: According to Professor Adam Winstock of the Global Drugs Survey, you should leave long gaps (ideally two or three months) in between taking MDMA to ​“magnify your enjoyment and give your brain enough time to recover”.