Dabba Cartel: Is Mithai a Real Drug?

In ‘Dabba Cartel,’ the audience accompanies Raji and a group of other inconspicuous women as they gradually overtake the underground drug market in Mumbai through their discreet lunchbox delivery business. Initially, they enter the drug dealing market after becoming local crime lord Chavan’s target. Eventually, Raji’s mother-in-law, Sheila, a long-retired criminal, begins managing the business and expanding their horizons. Consequently, the “tiffin” business-turned-drug-dealing operation begins booming, bringing added complication to the women’s lives. Soon enough, simply pushing MDMA in an oversaturated market falls short, compelling Sheila and her team to develop an entirely new party drug, Mithai, named after Indian sweets. The new substance quickly takes over the market, driving the narrative forward into higher stakes. Therefore, Mithai’s bold inclusion in the crime show might raise a few questions about its origins in reality.

Mithai is a Fictional Party Drug That Parallels Real Life

Mithai, the newly manufactured party drug from ‘Dabba Cartel,’ is not a real substance and remains limited to the confines of the show. As the story progresses, Sheila and the others can’t sell MDMA without running the risk of gaining Chacko’s attention. As such, the best alternative remains for them to create a new drug of their own. Thus, they create Mithai—a mixture of the fictional fentanyl-based painkiller Modella and MDMA. Since all the elements surrounding Mithai’s production and distribution are fictitious, the drug itself is also rendered to fictionality. Yet, there is some reality behind its genesis.

Varuna comes up with the idea of creating Mithati after taking inspiration from the street drug from South America, Tucibi. As it turns out, Tucibi—the in-universe inspiration for Mithai—is actually a real party drug. Better known as Tusi, Tucibi is a recreational drug that is believed to have origins in Latin America in the late 2010s. It’s a mixture of different substances with mind-altering effects, with Fentanyl often coming up as a notable contributing agent. Due to its pink hue, the drug is also known as “Pink Cocaine.” In real life, there have been no records of Tucibi inspiring any similar substances in the Indian underground drug world. Therefore, Mithai—the show’s take on an Indian Tucibi—remains a work of fiction.

Alternatively, there are other drugs that could have possibly inspired the on-screen psychoactive substances. In 2021, customs and border control authorities found a substance identified as “green” cocaine in Philadelphia. The powdery green substance was discovered to contain cocaine alkaloids. Similarly, there have been reports of a lime green pill branded as “UPS” that was found in Victoria, Australia, in 2022. This N-Ethylpentylone-based drug is often falsely sold as MDMA. Even though these instances of real-life green addictive substances have differing origins and effects than the fictional Mithai, it offers an off-screen context for the latter. Therefore, even though the party drug itself has no direct real-life counterparts, it remains grounded in reality. In some ways, it mirrors the adverse underbelly of the drug world and how new substances continue to periodically flood the market.

Read More: Dabba Cartel: Is the Netflix Show Based on a True Story?