PJ Vogt

They don't seem, like, hateful.

I think that's right.

The other thing I'm curious about is just, do you feel like with peptide marketing, do you feel that it is aimed, just in your experience with the internet, are you seeing it more aimed at men?

Or are you just seeing that it is equal opportunity in a way that cosmetics wouldn't have been in the past?

I think it's more equal opportunity.

It's weird to draw a line from somebody figuring out finally how to make video for social media work to teenagers have mini fridges with injectables in their bedrooms.

Totally.

After the break, we leave the kingdom of Clavicular and head back to Silicon Valley, where our story will resolve on, I promise, a less doomy note.

Welcome back to the show.

I have to say, as a person trying to come to my own internal verdict on peptides, I notice my view of them changes based on where I encounter them.

A tech CEO trying some compound I've never heard of?

Fine.

Some Adonis young man with a syringe convincing teenagers online to buy his stack?

obviously not fine.

It's the issue so often with any drug, that it's not just the inherent riskiness or safety of the substance, it's the context around it.

As a general rule, when it comes to drug reporting, I try not to ask reporters whether or not they've taken the drugs.

The late, brilliant Mark Kleiman, who wrote a lot about drug policy, once said, quote, If you do drug policy and you're asked whether you use drugs, you've got two choices.

You can say, yes, I'm a lawbreaker.

Please come arrest me and ignore everything I say because I'm a bad person.

Or, no, actually, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.