An old drug is causing brand new problems in the gay party scene

If your one takeaway from The Wolf of Wall Street was “gee, those quaalude things sound really fun!” I’ve got some good news, and some bad news.

The good news is, you’re not alone. Interest in the once-extinct sleeping pill-turned-rave-drug has created a black market quaalude renaissance, according to a recent Guardian report. The 2013 film has apparently inspired people in the year 2026 to start synthesizing their own versions of ludes, and now, people are getting addicted to the once-banned drugs all over again.

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“Because of Wolf of Wall Street, quaaludes have this proper vibe to them,” one anonymous source told the paper. “They’re these very classy, ancient, extinct drugs.” They were also the drugs Bill Cosby gave to his alleged victims.

You can probably guess the bad news, which is that these drugs are totally unregulated and potentially very dangerous, and they’re not the only ones.

Quaaludes—aka “disco biscuits”—were technically banned in the mid-1980s. Before that, doctors were “giving them out like candy” as part of the ’50s/60s sedative boom that put “Mother’s Little Helper” pills in the hands of anyone who asked for them. Now, they’re back in action, along with another party drug that’s gone dangerously unregulated: kratom, a highly addictive synthetic opioid responsible for the recent death by overdose of adult content creator Christian Styles.

Quaaludes, at least, aren’t sold over the counter. Synthetic opioids like kratom, kava, and its derivative 7-OH, however, can be purchased at gas stations and cafes in states like Florida thanks to legal loopholes that class the drugs as less dangerous than other opioids.

While kratom isn’t as addictive as heroin, it works on the same parts of the brain, and can easily lead to overdose if not used responsibly. Quaaludes might not be as easily accessible, but because of their black market existence, counterfeit ludes spiked with fentanyl have also found their way to the public.

For the queer community, these newer offerings pose a special risk. According to a 2024 study, LGBTQ+ people are more at risk of addiction than their straight counterparts as a direct result of discrimination.

“For men who have sex with men, smartphone technology has increased access to both casual sex and drugs,” the report explains. “Among the chemsex community, sex enhanced by drugs such as crystal methamphetamine or GHB/GBL can be an immensely joyful, freeing, and pleasurable experience for participants.” A 2022 study even found that bisexuals were at higher risk for kratom use specifically.

All of which makes the preponderance of over-the-counter synthetic opioids and street quaaludes even more concerning.

The DEA is on the way to classifying kratom with more dangerous Schedule I drugs that pose a high risk of addiction, but certain threshold loopholes stand in the way of harsher 7-OH restrictions nationwide. Quaaludes, already being illegal, pose a greater challenge. We learned this lesson from the opioid epidemic: a once-legal substance can have a long afterlife in the underground, and it’s going to take more than a bit of finger-wagging to curb its effects on the community.

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