The Tanning Drug What Patients Should Know Sharing my personal experience with Melanotan tanning injections (now nasals) how vanity led me down the path of using it, thinking I'd done all my research. Now, years later, I'm dealing with Dangerous 'Barbie drug' Melanotan II sparks crackdown on social media influencers ABC News Your body already makes a hormone that tells your skin to tan. Melanotan 2 is a synthetic peptide engineered to mimic that hormone but in a version that's more potent and longer lasting than Dangerous 'Barbie drug' Melanotan II sparks crackdown on social media influencers ABC News