Why they called it “2C-B” — the strange naming history of tusi

The name is a mispronunciation that outlived the drug it described. “Tusi” is roughly how “2C-B” sounds read aloud in Spanish — tu-si, two-C — and that phonetic ghost is now stamped on a pink powder that, most of the time, contains no 2C-B at all.

From a real psychedelic to a phonetic brand

2C-B is a genuine synthetic psychedelic, first made by the chemist Alexander Shulgin in the 1970s. In the Latin American nightlife scene it became a boutique club drug, and — as the pharmacology literature tells it — the powder was tinted pink partly to disguise the compound's bitter taste. That pink colour is where “tusi” and “pink cocaine” both begin.

The switcheroo that emptied the name

Then supply met economics. Real 2C-B is comparatively scarce and expensive, so sellers began cutting it — and eventually replacing it entirely — with cheaper, easier-to-source ketamine and MDMA that could roughly mimic a night out. Over time the 2C-B dropped out of the mixture altogether while the pink dye stayed put. The brand survived the product. What people now buy as “tusi” is a ketamine-MDMA cocktail wearing a psychedelic's name.

A name that traveled

Tusi first surfaced in Colombia in the late 2000s and spread outward — to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, and eventually to Europe and North America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Somewhere along that route “tusi” and “pink cocaine” became interchangeable, which is why a search for one pulls up the other and why nobody can quite agree what is in the bag.

Why the name still matters

This is not just etymology. Someone expecting the gentle, visual experience of real 2C-B may instead be handed a ketamine-forward stimulant blend that behaves nothing like it. When a name promises one drug and the powder delivers three others, precision stops being pedantic and starts being harm reduction.