Blaine, Minn. Designer Drug Overdose

[atpsynthase]

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Here in Minnesota, we recently had a terrible overdose event in Blaine involving teens and designer drugs bought over the internet.

Story from the Star Tribune in Minneapolis:

http://www.startribune.com/local/118199499.html


I was wondering what you pharmacists think about this and how these drugs were allowed to slip by into the states given the Controlled Substances Act... specifically the Federal Analog act in which the drug that caused the overdose, 2C-E... seems to be in violation of given its chemical similarity to mescaline and 2C-B... both scheduled drugs in the US.

Also important to consider that this 2C-E is unscheduled in the US, but in the UK it is Class A Controlled, in Sweden, it is also controlled, and in NZ as well. Also interesting how 2C-B, a very close analog of 2C-E, IS controlled in the US as a schedule I.

Thoughts on this, online pharmacies, controlled substances act, etc.?

 

[Ackj]

CSA means it's illegal, but doesn't really prevent anyone from doing it. The law only punishes those who get caught doing it...especially since it's not like you're obtaining them from a legitimate pharmacy anyway. If you've got some mad scientist making their own drugs and mailing them to customers, it's pretty hard to intercept that.

 

[SomeGuy]

Alcohol is scientifically the most harmful recreational drug out there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/11/drugs_debate_hots_up.html 2-Cx is too exotic to be on the list. I'm all ears to other scientific comparisons. Real evidence and rigorous academic reviews trump politicians, police officers, parents and teachers and always will.

Personal thoughts?

Drug scheduling and legality should be based upon their threat of harm to self and others, not blindly based on chemical structures or what's in the news. Ya know, just like how we treat everything else in society, why should powders be different?

Any pharmie should know even slight molecular substitutions can drastically change the effects of a drug, so analogue laws are ridiculous catch-alls.

There are and always will be loopholes in laws/enforcement that cause people to take the path of least resistance and start taking completely untested and/or impure drugs instead of ones that we actually have reason to believe are largely safe. That's the whole problem with designer drugs: They legally exist to skirt laws against much better studied and known drugs.

We often complain in the therapeutic pharmaceuticals world that drugs are approved without long-term studies, and in the recreational world, drugs that have essentially undergone extensive worldwide Phase IV studies are banned.

Some of these agents are so potent that unless you have the proper measuring equipment, you're at large risk of fatal overdose, and that's probably what happened to these fellows. Some states even have laws against scales, as they're considered "drug paraphernalia", so harm is amplified by the law, not reduced. For some recreational drugs, it's their sale as powders instead of tablets or capsules that skirts around the law (so they're technically not "drugs" if your lawyer is good enough), again, legal status amplifying harm.

 

[nrsair]

Tangentially related links on drugs and drug laws. They're all interesting:

2C-E synthesis and experience, from PiHKAL:
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal024.shtml

Teens overdosing from heroin in Plano, TX:
http://www.mapinc.org/newsgray/v99/n548/a09.html

Fentanyl abuse:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/f-is-the-new-h/Content?oid=7081932

I feel obligated (after linking to Erowid) to say that I don't do drugs, but I'm fascinated by narcotics and hallucinogenics/psychotropics.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

2C-E synthesis and experience, from PiHKAL:
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal024.shtml

Alexander Shulgin is the effin man

 

[nrsair]

Alexander Shulgin is the effin man

I agree. According to his Wikipedia page he actually discovered the 2C family that the topic of this thread belongs to. And of course he was in Berkeley for a good chunk of his career 😀

This is a q&a of sorts with a guy who claims to be a "clandestine chemist," making MDMA, DMT, LSD, heroin and a whole bunch of stuff. There's no way to verify what he says but it's a really interesting read:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/flpq6/iama_clandestine_chemist_ama/