NYU Local Goes Food Tripping

May 17th, 2013 by Kyle Walsh

Have you ever tried grapefruit and absolutely hated it? Well we’ve found a solution, temporarily at least. And no, you don’t have to be 65 years old. Apparently there’s a real fruit called Synsepalum Dulcificum which naturally turns sour foods sweet. The effect is due to miraculin, which is used as a sugar substitute in the food industry. Sadly, we couldn’t get the fruit, but we got the next best thing. It’s a tablet called Miracle Frooties, that when dissolved onto your tongue, inverts the taste-buds from sour to sweet. As in, It takes sour things and makes them taste like the sweetest candy you’ve ever had. We tried various foods and flavors to give you a hands-on report to their flavor profiles when under the effects. Surprisingly, it’s not as disgusting as you might think.

 

Lemons-  It tasted exactly like the sweetest, freshest lemon-aid you’ve ever had. Beware, if you take too big of a bite, your body will squirm from the effects your body normal feels from sour foods. The only thing that changes is your taste-buds, not your body’s reaction to it. Your taste-buds may be tell you it’s sweet, but your body will not. Read more…


NYU Local Considers Huffing Poppers, Part Two: A Straight Girl’s Take

April 24th, 2013 by Ashley D'Arcy

What are poppers? Who does them? Should we try them? *sniffs* Ohhhh my God, it feels like I’m laughing while doing a headstand!… Okay, let’s investigate. Here’s another writer’s take on the weird little bottle that you sniff. Check out the previous article in our series here.

Poppers came into my life as a matter of convenience. Christmas, 2012: I’d received multiple Amazon gift cards and, despite rampant book-buying, my total came up about 10 dollars short. I remembered hearing from a friend that you could buy great things on Amazon: gift cards to restaurants and stores, vibrators, and, of course, poppers. (Looking back on it now, I’m not sure why I went with poppers. Something of the mystery of them and, I guess, the price.)

Skip past two weeks of agonizing delivery and redelivery of my packages. It’s a Saturday and my roommate and I have been itching to take a sniff since the little brown box, containing the little brown bottle, arrived that afternoon. After a couple of drinks, and under the guidance of a previously “popped” friend, we took our first sniff. (Yes, since you are wondering, said friend is gay. Sometimes you have to get comfy with stereotypes before defying them.) Read more…


NYU Local Considers Huffing Poppers, Part One

March 28th, 2013 by Paul Pastore

What are poppers? Who does them? Should we try them? *sniffs* Ohhhh my God, it feels like I’m laughing while doing a headstand!… Okay, let’s investigate. Here’s one writer’s take on the weird little bottle that you sniff.

A couple of weeks ago, when I found out something called poppers existed, I felt completely out of the loop. It’s the same feeling as being excluded from that cool birthday party at the bowling ally in first grade because you threw sand at the birthday girl’s head.

Or, it’s like the time someone asked me if I had ever been to a circuit party and I had no idea what a circuit party was. As a gay man, there are just certain things I guess I should know. I had to invite myself to the party.

I started asking around, and it turns out that a lot of people are poppers enthusiasts. I heard stuff like “everyone does poppers,” and “you haven’t seen poppers around?” When I asked someone what doing poppers feels like, this was the reply: “It’s like holding your breath deep underwater… and it opens up your butt.”

That is definitively the most unpleasant-sounding thing I have ever heard, but apparently a lot of people still do them, so poppers obviously merited investigation. Read more…


Amanda Bynes Pleaaaaaase…..Get It Together

March 27th, 2013 by Chelsea Beeler

Last week while you and your friends left your laptops and iPads at home to hopefully jet-set to warmer parts of the globe, a lot of weird stuff was happening in terms of entertainment news – most notably retired actress Amanda Bynes tweeting at Drake to “murder” her vagina.

Over the course of the past week Bynes, who recently moved to New York to begin a career as a fashion designer, has been causing quite a stir with her incessant tweeting and frightening new look (featuring cheek piercings and a cheesy blond wig) that has her family worried she’s on drugs or completely insane.

Although Bynes refuses treatment for whatever could possibly be ailing her, it’s undeniable that something is seriously, seriously wrong. What happened to the jovial tween we loved in the late ‘90s ? Well, NYU Local is here to figure it out by dissecting Bynes’s career and arbitrarily assigning a “cry for help factor” (on a scale from 0 to 10) to the benchmark phases of her life.

Read more…


MythPuffers: The Curse Of The White Lighter

January 30th, 2013 by Chelsea Beeler

Welcome to MythPuffers, a new series in which we debunk all urban legends surrounding drugs, sex, and rock & roll. If you’re curious about a myth regarding something illicit (does freezing weed keep it fresh?), send us a line at nyulocaleditor@gmail.com and we’ll test it out (with pleasure). 

While many of you may have never thought twice about the iconic BIC lighters available around the world at every drug store, bodega, and gas station,  some of you paranoid stoners are probably familiar with the infamous curse of the white lighter.

In brief, there is somewhat of a cultural stigma against white lighters due to the fact that a large enough portion of pot smokers believes the innocuous devices are the cause of bad luck that encompasses run-ins with the law and even death in some cases. While these feelings are most likely grounded in superstition and paranoia, this week’s MythPuffers will examine the plausibility of the curse of the white lighter.

Read more…


[INFOGRAPHIC] Drugs, You, and NYU: A Visual Analysis

November 16th, 2012 by Kelly Weill

This week, NYU Local took to the internet with an important question: Is NYU on drugs?

The answer we received was a resounding “probably”.

Nearly six-hundred current NYU and NYU-Poly students from seventy-eight different programs shared their drug histories through an anonymous online survey. Their results are after the jump.

Disclaimer: This survey was distributed through Facebook groups, wall posts, G-Chats, listserves, Reddit links, and tweets. Its sample group was self-selected from these sources, therefore its results are likely biased toward the opinions of people who frequent these sites (also toward the opinions of people who like to take drug-related surveys just for fun)*.

Furthermore, Correlation does not imply causation. In other words, an apparent trend of drug-use among Biology majors does not imply that all Biology majors will use drugs, or that drug use will convert one into a Biology major.

*This disclaimer directed at the “CAS student majoring in Starcraft” who “does heroin everyday”: We discarded your answer because it was an obvious lie. The Starcraft major is only available through Gallatin.

Read more…


Don’t Break out the Cheetos Just Yet – Colorado and Washington Face Federal Challenges After Legalizing Pot

November 7th, 2012 by Raj Sidhu

Hell hath no fury like a federal government scorned.

In a first for the nation, and in the wake of an election that saw tremendous victories for the liberal populace, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational cultivation, sale, and possession of marijuana – a drug that the Obama administration still considers a schedule 1 controlled substance, and which they annually spend billions of dollars to fight against.

While Massachusetts joined 18 other states in passing legislation to allow for medical marijuana dispensaries by a landslide, and though Colorado and Washington passed their historic legislation by whopping margins of 6 percent and 10 percent respectively, a showdown with an unbending Department of Justice is imminent. Read more…


Business Is Good For NYU Drug Dealers

April 20th, 2011 by Alexey Novikov

It was twelve thirty on a Thursday night at a greasy burger joint in the East Village; outside, ice pounded the asphalt. We sat in a lacquered wooden booth at the back of the bar, far from the gaze of hostesses, cooks and drunks. There were two of us then -– myself and Sam -– sharing secrets and sucking down craft brews. Tension pooled on the lard-stained table as I asked unreasonable questions.

“How’s business these days?” I asked cautiously. “Run into any trouble with lawmen?”

When he wasn’t in school, Sam pushed cannabis to make ends meet. It’s hard asking a drug dealer about his job. It’s doubly so when that drug dealer is young, or worse yet a fellow student. Suddenly, the consequences are not only legal, but scholastic, familial.

It is no surprise, then, that the trade attracts a very particular type. Their reasons for joining the game are plentiful. Some are attracted to the status dealing provides. Others are excited by the danger of illegality. Others still, like Sam, deal pot because, to them, it is largely harmless and serves a public need. The ubiquity of marijuana at NYU is astounding –- nearly everyone smokes and has ‘had a guy’ since before their first day of classes.

Read more…


Busted: Police Arrest Dealers Responsible For 24-Hour NYU Drug Delivery

January 25th, 2011 by Lauren Walters

As if NYU wasn’t already associated with a whole host of drug-related problems, CBS Local reported Friday that a cocaine delivery service targeting NYU students had been busted.

The 24-hour service was operated by Washington Heights natives Thomas “Biggie” Zenon, 40, and Miguel “G” Guzman, 43, who were said to have distributed to over 200 clients below 14th Street and received hundreds of orders per night.

The investigation began over three months ago when the police were tipped off by a court officer and NYU parent about suspicious business cards attached to copies of the Village Voice outside Alumni Hall. During the investigation, undercover officers had twelve separate transactions with Zenon and Guzman, who are notable for the brazen advertising of their service. Read more…


Do NYU Kids Really Do More Drugs Than Columbia Kids?

January 24th, 2011 by Willis Plummer

While you were smoking pot in your hometown, the New York Post reported that NYU topped Columbia in drug related disciplinary incidents by a ratio of 5:1. The article implied numerous times that this statistic means NYU students use more drugs than students at Columbia. However, there are a few important issues that the Post seems to have glazed over in their coverage of this story.

The first consideration is a no-brainer – NYU has three times as many students as Columbia, so when the statistic is per-capita, the ratio of drug incidents at NYU versus Columbia is really 5:3. And when you factor into the equation the fact that Gallatin is a part of NYU, it’s shocking that there aren’t 20 times as many incidents at NYU. Read more…