New Rave Drugs Have Experts Concerned

[GDxCAT]

A new class of drugs is getting increased attention from police and partyers alike.



Synthetic hallucinogens, which are growing in popularity at nightclubs
and rave parties, are so new that many don't even have street names
yet.



Usually manufactured in small home-based laboratories, these drugs have
law enforcement and health officials concerned because their long-term
health effects are virtually unknown.



'Colors Were Really Brilliant and Crisp'



The drugs reportedly have effects similar to the popular rave drug
ecstasy: feelings of euphoria, emotional empathy and colorful
hallucinations. The typical user is a young, white, college-educated
and Web-savvy person who finds that these drugs complement the dance
music heard at nightclubs and raves.



"It's kind of mildly hallucinogenic and visual," said Gregory, a
graphic designer from California who tried one of these drugs for the
first time last year. "Colors were really brilliant and crisp, and I
became really relaxed."



Most synthetic hallucinogens are still referred to by a confusing alphabet soup of names based on their chemical compounds.



2C-B is considered one of the most popular of these drugs. 2C-T-7 is
often compared to LSD for its colorful hallucinations. AMT was
originally developed in the 1960s for antidepressant research, but was
abandoned shortly thereafter. 5-MEO-DiPT, also referred to as "Foxy,"
is sometimes used as a substitute for ecstasy.



Buyer Beware



"Because these drugs are unstudied in the medical literature, we don't
know all of the side effects or all of the dangers involved in the use
of these drugs," said Paula Berezansky, intelligence analyst for the
National Drug Intelligence Center, a branch of the Department of
Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration.



The illicit way in which synthetic hallucinogens are sold presents
another problem. "A user may not know what they're buying," Berezansky
added. "Something sold as one drug may be another."



Most synthetic hallucinogens fall into two general categories,
phenethylamines and tryptamines. Both chemical compounds occur in
nature and are found in common plants and foods — small amounts of
phenethylamine are even found in chocolate.



Nationwide, a handful of overdoses and hospital admissions have been
attributed to synthetic hallucinogens. But because many of these drugs
are mixed with other drugs or their actual chemical nature is unknown
even to the users, accurate records are difficult to gather.



Health Effects Are Unknown









"We've actually had patients come in with a condition called monoamine
oxidase toxicity from taking combinations of drugs that include
tryptamines," said Dr. Edward Boyer, director of toxicology at the
University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.



"What concerns me … is that kids are turning to psychoactive drugs at a
younger age," Boyer added. "We simply don't know what these tryptamines
do to a developing neurological system. Tryptamines are powerful
hallucinogens."



"People can't even decide what the long-term effects of a common drug
like ecstasy are, let alone something like 2C-B," said Boyer.



Law enforcement officials echo the concerns of the medical community.



"It's a young group of people who are using this and half the time they
don't know what they're using — they're going on what a friend says,"
said Lt. Patrick J. Garey, a member of the Community Narcotics
Enforcement Team of the New York State Police.



"There's so much poly-drug mixing of drugs that occurs, you could be taking ecstasy mixed with a bunch of other drugs," he said.



Psychonauts Surfing the Web



"One of the reasons we've seen these drugs increase in use over the
last few years is the use of the Internet," said Berezansky. "The
abusers can find out a lot about these drugs very easily."



She refers to users by the name law enforcement officials have coined
for those who surf the Web for drug information: "psychonauts."



But drug users aren't the only ones surfing the Internet for drug information.



When Garey was called to participate in a recent seizure of a 2C-B lab
at a home in Tioga County in upstate New York, he told ABCNews.com: "It
kind of came out of the blue. We'd never seen it before. I'd never even
heard of it. I had to go on the Internet to find out what it was."



The DEA is also using the Internet, but to snare the dealers who profit
from the sale of synthetic hallucinogens. In July, the DEA announced
the conclusion of "Operation Web Tryp," named for the tryptamines that
were part of the operation's focus.



Operation Web Tryp targeted five Web sites and resulted in the arrest of 10 individuals from across the United States.



But many of these drugs are so new their legal status is a matter of
some confusion. 5-MEO-DiPT, for example, was not even permanently
placed on the Federal Register as a Schedule I controlled substance
until September of this year.



Rod, a computer hardware engineer in the San Francisco Bay area who
preferred to use an assumed name, has experimented with the synthetic
hallucinogen 2C-B.



"Initially, a friend of mine at a rave told me about it when he was
tripping pretty hard on it," Rod said. "Then I followed up on it by
reading this book by a guy named Shulgin."



Alexander Shulgin is widely credited with fostering the popularity of
synthetic hallucinogens through his 1990 book, "Pihkal: A Chemical Love
Story." (The name "Pihkal" is an acronym for Phenethylamines I Have
Known and Loved.)



Rod describes his experience as interesting but not especially
exciting. "It was just mildly hallucinogenic — it made everything
sharper and more vivid, and there was a slight hallucinogenic effect,"
he said. "It was all visual for me."



But when asked if he would try the drug again, Rod said, "No, probably not."



Like some other users, Rod is concerned about anecdotal information
from a number of sources that overuse of these drugs has led to the
development of symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease.



None of this information, however, has been tested through medical research.



"I think that was the only time I've taken a drug that hasn't been
taken for a long period of time by a large number of people," Rod said.
"Combined with the fact that you don't know what you're buying when you
buy it, it's just like, forget it. I'm sort of a conservative drug
taker."



</font> New Rave Drugs Have Experts Concerned



Use of Synthetic Hallucinogens Is on the Rise,

But Health Effects Are Unknown



By MARC LALLANILLA

Dec. 30, 2004 —



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[lolomgwtfbbq]

This is a bit random, but is the experience called "tripping" because of the tryptamines?</font>

[bman1]

I think it is called "tripping" because you go places when you take them

[noeticbuzz]

So authority figures are concerned about the effects of synthetic designer drugs. I have an idea instead of scheduling everything in site why not actuall perform some studies on the pihkal and tihkal chemicals?


Wait that would make to much sense.