What could be more terrifying than being trafficked for sex? Being murdered in a ritual sacrifice. And even worse than that would be being murdered in a ritual sacrifice so wealthy elite cabalists can harvest your adrenal glands to get the compound they need to prolong their decrepit lives!

Whoa, indeed.

That’s the theory behind “adrenochrome,” one of those seemingly nonsensical concepts that’s all over the modern conspiracy theory movement, particularly #QAnon.

As the conspiracy theory goes, adrenochrome is a natural compound found in the adrenal glands, that spikes at moments of fear or terror. And it provides a euphoric high so powerful that to take it even once is to become immediately addicted and unable to survive without it. And the only way to get it is to kill and devour frightened children.

And who is more terrorized than a child about to be ritually killed?

So the cabal (aka the deep state, aka the black hats, etc) systematically kidnaps and trafficks children first for the sexual thrills, then to murder them to harvest their adrenochrome and get high AF.

That supposed trafficking camp in Tucson? All about getting that sweet adrenochrome. And the child separation crisis at the border? Ginned up by the cabal to get some new adrenochrome vending machines.

And who drinks this precious adrenochrome? Why, Hillary Clinton, of course.

https://twitter.com/timwe592/status/1016101692155285504

And Barack Hussein “Hussein” Obama

And every other Democrat, wealthy celebrity, and major liberal figure. Without adrenochrome, they’d shrivel up and be blown apart by the slightest touch from the heroic Donald Trump and his gang of autist patriots.

https://twitter.com/RANDYPLUMLEY1/status/1013440249425481729

In the real world, the one where Hillary Clinton walks in the woods and occasionally tweets rather than eating children’s organs to stay alive, adrenochrome is an actual thing.

But its ability to provide euphoric highs stems almost entirely from pop culture depictions of its supposed awesome power, and one very flawed study.

In 1952, two scientists theorized that the oxidized pigment form of adreneline, called adrenochrome (though having no link to metal of any kind) was present in the brains of patients with severe mental illness. They also theorized that it could cause a euphoric high if ingested.

“We suspected it might be an hallucinogen because pink or deteriorated adrenaline was, and it resembled the few known hallucinogens like d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)” wrote Abram Hoffer, one of the original adrenochrome researchers in a 1990 article called “The Adrenochrome Hypothesis and Psychiatry,” adding that “schizophrenia arose in an individual when too much adrenochrome was formed, [therefore] adrenochrome then interfered with brain function as would LSD, and that created the essential stage for the formation of schizophrenia.”

Hoffer was an innovative biochemist, but he was also something of a crank. He employed family members to test his theories about the medical efficacy of LSD, and his theories on using megadoses of vitamin C and niacin to cure mental illness are completely discarded by the scientific establishment.

While he had some promising results with his initial research using vitamins to cure schizophrenia, follow-up studies showed no benefit, and considerable risk to vitamin megadosing. And nothing he wrote about adrenochrome producing some kind of massive, life-extending high has ever been born out in scientific research.

Adrenochrome does have one medical use, as a form of it can be employed to staunch vascular bleeding. It’s not even hard to get, as it’s not illegal, and you can buy it in 25 or 250 mg doses to use in research.

The adrenochrome-as-super-hallucinogenic theory hit popular culture thanks to two influential books: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson, and Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception.”

Thompson’s book has a character describing it as making “pure mescaline seem like ginger beer” and harvest from “the adrenal glands of a living human being.” None of this has ever been demonstrated through scientific research, and it seems likely Thompson was making it up.

Huxley references Hoffer’s initial 1952 study (which has since been superseded by better information), calling adrenochrome “a product of the decomposition of adrenaline” and claiming it can “produce many of the symptoms of mescaline intoxication.”

So is adrenochrome some kind of organic substitute for mescaline? If it is, drug users haven’t gotten mega-high from it. One anonymous user on the drug education site Erowid chronicled his experimentation with it, describing the effect as “very light and really uninteresting” and “not fun nor psychedelic in any way.” Another user said it gave them headaches for a week.

Oh, and rat studies have demonstrated that heavy use of adrenochrome might cause heart failure and death.

Does any of this sound like a compound that wealthy elites would literally murder and eat children to obtain? A chemical that can easily be bought, does nothing psychoactive whatsoever, and might actually kill you? Other than Thompson’s one mention and a few stray attempts to get high off it, the compound has no footprint among drug users, and the rumored horrors perpetrated to obtain it are just that – rumors.

It seems far more likely that adrenochrome hysteria is based entirely on things people have heard, repeated without question, and never seen any proof of. In that, it’s a perfect fit for #QAnon.

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