Information on Synthetics Drugs

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Bath salts may result in hallucinations, paranoia, aggressive behavior or homicidal or suicidal tendencies.

This is a trend that shows no signs of slowing, making it far more important than ever before that young people are educated on the harm that can come from abusing drugs. Narconon centers around the world not only provide rehabilitation after addiction but also drug education and prevention services. Each year, hundreds of thousands of young people are reached with the message that happiness and safety result from sobriety. The Narconon drug education curriculum has shown to result in lower substance abuse statistics among the young people receiving these classes.

And in some forty locations internationally, Narconon rehab centers help people come back from the abuse of these seriously damaging synthetics. Find out how you can help someone who has been addicted to one of these drugs.

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Worldwide Crisis of Synthetic Drug Use

Sixty years ago, there were only a handful of drugs that caused addiction, illness, and degeneration. You mostly heard about people abusing alcohol, heroin, cannabis or cocaine. A few people might have some opium, morphine or hashish but possession of these drugs was rare in the West.

Certain professions lost some of their members to addiction to alcohol or heroin, like jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday and Bunny Berigan. Writers like Raymond Chandler, O. Henry and F. Scott Fitzgerald were known to be alcoholics. But no one was becoming addicted or dying from the effects of drugs like “bath salts,” Ecstasy, mephedrone, methamphetamine, Spice or K2.

In this new millennium, new synthetic drugs have been hitting the market across the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. The effects of these drugs have been disastrous–even fatal–for thousands of people. The rapidity with which chemists come up with a new formula and get that formula to the illicit drug market has created an international crisis in law enforcement and healthcare.

The United Nations reports that these new synthetics have been found in nearly every corner of the world. All of North America, most of South America, Australia, much of Southeast Asia, Russia, almost all of Europe, China and scattered parts of Africa have all reported the seizure of these new drugs.

Since there are new drugs being manufactured and sold every few days, it is impossible to provide a complete catalog of synthetics. Below you’ll find a listing of some of the drugs that may be on the market in your area. Since there are hundreds of formulas, this list can only include the most common drugs.

Main Classes of Synthetics

Some parents may be satisfied understanding simply that a threat exists and how to explain this threat to their children. Other parents may want to understand more about the different types of drugs. The different categories are included here along with common symptoms of their use as far as they are understood at the time of this writing. These drugs are sold at many convenience stores, head shops, party venues, gas stations, and on the internet. There are even reports of drugs being sold from ice cream trucks.

These drugs are reported by the DEA to most often be manufactured in chemical plants in China, India or Pakistan, principally China. One kilogram can be worth a third of a million dollars. The profits that can be made are astronomical.

Here’s a rundown on some of the major synthetic drugs on the market:

Synthetic Cathinones

Synthetic Cathinones have a chemical composition similar to a plant called khat that is grown in Eastern Africa. It is these drugs that are often found in drugs sold as ‘bath salts.’ These drugs are readily available online.

Their use is associated with bizarre, homicidal and suicidal behavior. They can cause liver and kidney failure and seizures. Users may become paranoid and may suffer intense, uncontrollable hallucinations. They may become terrified and then turn violent or self-destructive. They are highly addictive.

Users have also reported agitation, insomnia, irritability, seizures, panic attacks, loss of control of the body, inability to think clearly, dizziness, suicidal thoughts, delusions, and depression. Physically, users suffered chest pains, rapid heart rate, nosebleeds, sweating, nausea, and vomiting.

The drugs MDPV and mephedrone (mentioned above, and now illegal in the U.S) were very often found in bath salts when they were first on the market. MDPV (short for “3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone”) was found to be 10 to 50 times more potent than cocaine. You can see its ‘overdose’ potential. Flephedone (“4-FMC for 4-fluoromethcathinone”) is another drug in this class.

Well-known chemicals in this category:

• Mephedrone
• MDPV
• Flephedone
• Methylone

The Health Risks of Cathinones

Because of the delusional, homicidal or suicidal behavior of some people who have used this drug, a person may come to serious harm. Some people have killed themselves or others while high on this drug. Due to hallucinations, they had no idea what was really happening around them or who was an enemy.

These are very strong stimulants which means the heart speeds up and the blood vessels constrict, resulting in heavy stress on the heart. Some users arrive in emergency rooms with chest pains. Excessively fast heart rates and overheating can terminate in death.

Some people experience what is called “excited delirium” which is an intensely overstimulated state that brings about dehydration and breakdown of muscle tissue. A person will be incoherent, combative and agitated and be unresponsive to help or directions. Disintegrated muscle tissue material can flood the kidneys with toxins and cause them to fail. The liver or the heart may also fail. Body temperature can soar to 105 degrees or higher. A person suffering from excited delirium can die even when treated promptly.

Appearance

They may be sold in small jars or foil packages that contain a fine white or slightly yellow powder.

Names and packaging

They may be labeled Bliss, Drone, Vanilla Sky, Ivory, Ocean, Eight Ball, White Girl, White Dove or similar names. Instructions may state that they are for a ‘stimulating bath.’ They may also be sold as plant food, research chemicals or fertilizer. Their packages will usually falsely say “Not for Human Consumption.” The drugs may be snorted, smoked, swallowed or injected.

Mephedrone itself has been called M-Cat, Meph, Drone, Miaow, Meow Meow, Subcoca-1, or Bubbles. Methylone may be nicknamed Top Cat.

Synthetic Cannabinoids

Synthetic Cannabinoids (cannabinoid meaning “similar to marijuana”) are promoted as mimicking the effects of marijuana. Chemically, they have nothing in common with marijuana but they act in the body in similar ways to the complex chemicals in naturally grown pot.

These chemicals are sprayed on herbal material that is then smoked. Damiana is the plant material often used for this purpose. The plant itself contains a mildly stimulating drug that causes euphoria. Most of the chemical formulas are known only by letter-number combinations, for example:

• JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-370
• HU-210
• CP 47,497
• AM-1248
• XLR-11

When these formulas are smoked, the effect is usually about four times as strong as smoking marijuana. It starts out slow at first, so a person may be surprised by the potency that arrives later than expected. Adverse effects include agitation, fast heart rate, confusion, dizziness and nausea. At least three cases of chest pain with heart damage have been reported. And stronger, more dangerous effects have been reported.

Appearance

The drug is sold in foil packages often labeled as K2, K3 Legal, Spice, Spice Gold, Diesel, King Kong, Cloud 9 or any other name the manufacturer thinks up. They may be labeled as incense products.

The ‘JWH’ in the chemical formulations above refer to research chemist John W. Huffman who developed many of these formulas while searching for drugs to help multiple sclerosis or AIDs patients. After his formulas began to be used illicitly, he stated, “I figured once it got started in Germany it was going to spread. I’m concerned that it could hurt people. I think this was something that was more or less inevitable. It bothers me that people are so stupid as to use this stuff.”

Synthetic Cocaine

Synthetic cocaine derivatives, chemically similar to cocaine, are readily available and legal in most countries. Like cocaine, they have some anesthetic properties. There are two forms of this drug that have been reported to be abused:

• 3-(p-fluorobenzoyloxy)tropane, usually referred to as pFBT
• Dimethocaine

They are available from websites and head shops, labeled as research chemicals, legal highs, plant food or other misleading names.

They act as stimulants. They can cause high blood pressure and speeded heart rate. They are reported to cause anxiety and temporary psychosis when they are abused. They are normally snorted/sniffed.

Names for the drug

Dimethocaine has been sold as Mind Melt, Amplified and Mint Mania.

Ketamine

Ketamine has long been used as an animal tranquilizer. It was previously used as a human anesthetic but this use was nearly completely discontinued because of unpleasant side effects such as agitation and hallucinations.

Ketamine may be stolen from veterinary practices or brought into the US from other countries. It causes sedation, dissociation (disconnection of one’s awareness of self and one’s own thoughts), and hallucinations. It may be available in pill, powder or injectable liquid form and may be smoked, sniffed or injected. Injections may be done into a vein or into a muscle.

The drug is somewhat similar chemically to PCP. It may also be added to leafy substances so it can be smoked. Liquid ketamine can also be dropped directly in the eyes, placed on the skin or dropped in an open glass or soda can.

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Ketamine is normally abused by young people who are already living a very risky life, with other drugs being abused, abnormal sleeping hours and unhealthy sexual practices. It is common for the injectable form to be shared which can lead to the transmission of diseases such as hepatitis or HIV. In some parts of the world, ketamine is often combined with Ecstasy.

This drug may be abused in a club setting or in isolation. Ketamine users may continue to dose until they reach a state of complete dissociation from their bodies and environments, a state referred to as the “k-hole.” Such persons can be found lying on the floor or sidewalk staring up, seemingly unresponsive (but in there somewhere).

A small dose of ketamine may just act as a sedative.

Ketamine has the particular quality of causing bladder damage or destruction when heavily used. Some users suffer great pain while urinating and must have surgery to repair or even remove their bladders after heavy abuse.

Names for the drug

Brand names Ketaved, Ketaset, Vetamine, Vetalar, Ketalar

Nicknames Vitamin K, Special K, Kitty, Super K, Kit Kat, Jet, K, Lady K, Super acid, Cat Valium

Appearance

Ketamine may be a white powder, small round pills or bottles of injectable liquid labeled with brand names as above.

Phenethylamines

Phenethylamines are strong stimulants with hallucinogenic effects.

Drugs in this class include

MDMA/ Ecstasy

MDMA or Ecstasy, perhaps the best-known drug in this class of synthetics. It is in extensive use at concerts, music festivals, nightclubs and dance clubs. It creates a heightened perception of music and light, which is why music venues have dramatic light shows and hand out small lighted objects to attendees. There is an illusion of closeness to other people and increased skin sensation, but the stimulating effect of the drug also increases the heart rate and respiration and sends the body temperature soaring. Many people have suffered from paranoia or panic attacks while high on the drug and some have died from overheating after dancing for hours and becoming dehydrated. When coming down off the drug is also has the effect of causing the jaw muscles to cramp. Ecstasy users sometimes can be identified from the baby ‘pacifiers’ they hold in their mouths to prevent their teeth from grinding.

In the late 1960s, MDMA, also referred to as Ecstasy, began to be used as a psychiatric drug, and then spread out into illicit use. It was not illegal until 1985. Ecstasy has been a popular music venue drug because of the changes it creates in sensory perception and emotions. Music venues and nightclubs are now designed to complement the drug-taking experience, with flashing light shows, free light sticks that can be waved about in time to the music, and even fabric-covered walls to appear to the heightened tactile sense of the user. Many dance venues have chill rooms where a person in danger of overheating from this strong stimulant can cool off.

MDMA has resulted in anxiety, panic attacks and severe overheating that causes organ breakdown and death. MDMA can quickly become addictive for some people.

For many years, the Netherlands was the primary source of Ecstasy, but in recent years, Canada became a source country, especially for Ecstasy seized in the US. Nearly four million tablets of Ecstasy were seized at the US-Canada border in 2010.

Appearance

MDMA/Ecstasy is usually sold as a colored pill, often stamped with the impression of a logo. These pills may be sold in a blister pack or as individual pills.

Bromo-DragonFLY

Bromo-DragonFLY was given this nickname because the shape of the molecule resembles a dragonfly. The first adverse effects seen in Sweden in 2008 resulted in liver failure, kidney failure and constriction of the blood vessels to the extremities requiring amputation of much of one hand and two toes. This may have been the result of an unintentional overdose but the user had no memory of what happened the night he took the drug.

The difference between what is considered a ‘safe’ dose and a fatal dose is very, very small. In 2003, the owner of a research chemical company in Denmark consumed some of his own drug and died of an overdose. The drug was mistakenly labeled as 2C-B-FLY but was actually the much stronger Bromo-DragonFLY. Similar deaths occurred in Oklahoma and Minnesota in 2011, along with additional injuries.

Besides being very potent, the effects of this drug may last as long as three days. Confusion, heart problems, seizures and hallucinations often result.

Appearance

May be sold as a white or off-white powder in a small plastic bag, labeled “not for food, drug, household or cosmetic use.”

Smiles

This is a new form of phenethylamine that surfaced in 2012 and was associated with multiple deaths. It is also known as 2C-1. Use results in aural and visual hallucinations and self-destructive activity.

Other formulas of phenethylamine are known only by number-letter designation, for example:

• 2C-B
• 2C-E
• 2C-T-7
• 2C-P

Methamphetamine and Amphetamine:

Methamphetamine and amphetamines were well-known as prescription drugs provided to soldiers and pilots during the Second World War, and their use spread out among the civilian population during the 1960s. Meth then began to be produced illicitly by motorcycle gangs, then small mom and pop operations and finally Mexican drug cartels. Methamphetamine is distributed to every corner of the US, mostly consisting of drugs manufactured in large Mexican labs. Small domestic labs (which may consist just of a two-liter bottle filled with toxic chemicals) also provide a steady supply of meth.

Meth is also manufactured in the Czech Republic for those in Europe who wish to abuse the drug. In Scandinavia and the Middle East, it’s more likely to be amphetamine that is abused–in the Middle East, this drug is distributed in pill form and goes by the name “Captagon.” In recent years, Estonia and Poland have recently joined the list of amphetamine-producing nations.

Methamphetamine is highly addictive and causes physical deterioration, paranoia, and aggressiveness, among other symptoms. Users of these stimulants fail to eat or rest, sometimes going on week-long binges of drug use.

Most of the world’s illicit supply of amphetamines is currently manufactured in East and South-East Asia. Amphetamine-type stimulants are also the greatest drug threat in this area. In 2010, 133 million amphetamine pills were seized in South-East Asia.

“Bath Salts”

This is another case of mislabeling toxic chemicals intended for recreational use as something harmless. In this case, mephedrone, MDPV and other chemicals were labeled “for a soothing bath, not for human consumption.” But everyone knew they were going to be smoked or ingested. Head shops and convenience stores around the country began to carry them since they were legal and could not be seized by law enforcement.

But then bath salts began to be associated with horrific tales of violence and death. Like the double-murder suicide involving a man and woman who had taken bath salts, and their five-year-old son–all dead. And a young man in Louisiana who cut his throat one day and then shot himself the next because of bath salts-induced psychosis.

Bath salts have been found for sale across the US and European countries. Bath Salts were declared illegal in the US in July 2012. The Drug Enforcement Administration followed this declaration with a crackdown on synthetic drugs that spanned 31 states and resulted in the arrest of 91 people.

Mephedrone:

Mephedrone appeared on the illicit drug market in the UK in 2003. It was not made illegal in most European countries until later in the decade. By 2009, mephedrone was the fourth-most frequently used drug in the UK in dance venues.

Mephedrone was just the tip of the iceberg, however. Unscrupulous chemists were modifying chemical formulas just one or two molecules at a time to come up with new drugs that skirted drug laws. Whether they were safe or damaging never seemed to be an issue.

By 2010, fifteen such drugs were being monitored by the European Monitoring Council for Drugs and Drug Addiction but dozens more had already hit the market. Many of these drugs were classed as cathinones, compounds similar to those found in khat, a plant abused in Eastern Africa for its euphoric properties. The list of new drugs included mephedrone, methylone, and MDPV.

Spice:

Spice was purported to be a legal replacement for cannabis and was often sold as incense in head shops. Instructions for use specifically state that the product was not for human consumption but that fooled no one. Spice, also known as K2, is composed of one or more chemicals sprayed onto herbal material. These chemicals are known only as HU-210, JWH-018 or JWH-073, among others.

Besides being legal in the US until 2012, Spice would not show up on many existing drug tests in the early days of its distribution. It found popularity among some members of the military, but this was short lived. In 2011, more than 1,500 sailors were relieved of duty after being found to be using Spice. The military had to scramble to update drug tests and institute drug abuse monitoring programs in part due to the internal crisis created by Spice abuse.

Spice was found to cause anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis, and paranoia in some users. Several deaths were associated with Spice, often because of paranoia or violence triggered by the use of the drug. But lack of drug tests for Spice in the early days of its distribution made accurate reporting on resulting deaths impossible.

Spice was made illegal in the US in July 2012.

Law Enforcement Struggles to Keep Up

With the rapid growth in the number of drugs on this list, it is no wonder that law enforcement can’t keep up. New laws are issued at a federal level that may list many of these drugs but there could be a dozen new drugs on the market in a week. There are “Analog Laws” on the books that state that any substance that acts in a way analogous to illegal drugs are themselves illegal, but these laws may not be able to be enforced in every area. And many states have passed laws outlawing some of these substances and not others. The complexity of trying to keep damaging substances banned across the US is increasing continually.

Drug tests also can’t be updated fast enough to keep up. One drug testing company came up with a test that shows the presence of 14 drugs that may be found in “bath salts” or similar drugs, but there are dozens of others that may not be able to be detected by any current test.