'Microgram Bulletin' has kept chemists and drug users aware of trends for the past 50 years.

If you ever get arrested for drug possession, the last thing you might imagine is scientists passing around pictures of your stuff, describing it to each other in detail and poring over the gritty details.

But for nearly five decades, that’s exactly what has happened in the United States. Microgram Bulletin, a monthly publication produced by the Drug Enforcement Administration, includes photographs and chemical analyses of drugs seized by various law enforcement officials, as well as information about the situations in which the drugs were seized.

Microgram Bulletin, which has existed since before the DEA, began in 1967 as a typewritten newsletter produced by the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control, the DEA’s precursor. The early publications described such things as chemical analysis of PCP, human testing of DMT, and thorough chemical information about LSD (which you can see below). The first issue even contained a humble request for feedback.

“When, and if, the next issue appears depends on reader reaction,” wrote the author. “Let us know what you think and give us suggestions for future issues.”

From 1967 through 2002, access to Microgram Bulletin was restricted to law enforcement personnel. It was targeted at analytical chemists, since it focused so much on the methods used to analyze illicit drugs. But it also served to alert law enforcement officials to national and regional trends, such as different methods being used to smuggle or ingest drugs.

In 2003, the DEA made Microgram Bulletin accessible to the public. This opened up access to anyone with an internet connection, and while the tone of the newsletter remained cheerfully candid when explaining something like an electric guitar stuffed with cocaine or a child’s plush animal purse full of methamphetamine, sensitive details related to ongoing investigations were excluded from the publication.

Unfortunately, in 2013, the DEA returned the publication to law-enforcement-restricted status. Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, says this change highlights how arbitrary government secrecy policies can be.

“Assuming that the substance and the sensitivity of the publication remained constant over the years, the decision to remove it from public access again just demonstrates the subjectivity of so much of government secrecy policy,” he tells Inverse. “Two people looking at the same information will often reach different conclusions about its degree of sensitivity.”

He also suspects that the change was likely motivated by an unwillingness to individually vet items in the newsletter for secrecy concerns.

“Restricting access is also the lazy path of least resistance. If the whole publication is designated as restricted, that eliminates the need to review individual articles or statements for possible withholding,” he says. “But it also negates the serendipitous benefits of knowledge sharing.” (An official at the DEA was unavailable for comment at the time of publication. We will update this story if we receive comment.)

While civilians can’t access new issues of Microgram Bulletin, the DEA has left issues from 2003 to 2013 open to the public. We dug through the archives for some of the strangest ways people have been caught smuggling drugs, including the original text from the publication:

In addition to the 2003 to 2013 archive, the drug information website Erowid also published the first 12 issues, which you can view on their periodicals page. So if you want to dive down a deep rabbit hole of drug smuggling and law enforcement, look no further. But make sure you have a few hours to spare.