Witnesses described the
17-year-old boy as "shaking, growling, foaming at the mouth."
According to police reports, Elijah Stai was at a McDonald's with his friend
when he began to feel ill. Soon after, he "started to smash his head
against the ground" and began acting "possessed," according to a
witness. Two hours later, he had stopped breathing.
The Grand Forks, North Dakota
teenager's fatal overdose has been blamed on a drug called 2C-I. The night
before Stai's overdose, another area teen, Christian Bjerk, 18, was found face
down on a sidewalk. His death was also linked to the drug. 2C-I--known by its
eerie street name "Smiles"--has become a serious problem in the Grand
Forks area, according to local police. Overdoses of the drug have also be
reported in Indiana and Minnesota. But if the internet is any indication,
Smiles is on the rise all over the country.
DEA
cracks down on new versions of hard drugs
"At the moment I am
completely and fully submerged, if you can't tell by my eyes, in a psychedelic
world known as 2C-I," says a man who appears to be in his late teens or
early 20s on a YouTube video posted back in October. His pupils are dilated. He
struggles to formulate a description of what he's feeling-it's hard to tell if
its because his experience is profound or if his speech skills are simply
blunted. He's one of dozens of users providing Youtube "reports" of
their experiences on the synthetic drug.
Smile's effects have been called
a combination of MDMA and LSD, only far more potent. Users have reported a
speedy charge along with intense visual and aural hallucinations that can last
anywhere from hours to days. "At first I'd think something was extremely
beautiful and then it look really strange," another user says in a
recorded online account."I looked at my girlfriend's face for a minute and
it was pitch black…the black started dripping out of her eye."
Because the drug is relatively
new--it first surfaced around 2003 in European party scenes and only recently
made its way to the states--the most readily accessible information about 2C-I
comes from user accounts, many of which detail frightening experiences.
Elijah
Stai's fatal overdose has prompted a crackdown on the drug in North Dakota.
On an internet forum one user
describes the high as a "roller coaster ride through hell," while
another warns "do not drive on this drug," after recounting his own
failed attempt on the roadway. Over the past few years, synthetic drugs like
K-2, spice and Bath Salts, have become increasing popular with teenagers and
young adults. Their ingredients are relatively easy to obtain and order online
and until recently, they weren't classified as illegal substances. But as they
come under legal scrutiny, one by one, they've triggered a domino effect of
newer, altered, and more potent versions.
"I think [the drugs] just
keep changing to try to circumvent the law," Lindsay Wold, a detective
with the Grand Forks police department, told Yahoo Shine. "Anytime we try
to figure something out, it changes." Since July, her department has
launched an awareness campaign in an effort to crack down on 2C-I's growing
popularity with teens and young adults in the area. While reports of overdoses
have spiked, Wold says it's difficult to measure it's growth in numbers.
The
horrifying side effects of Bath Salts drug
According data obtained by the
American Association of Poison Control, half of those exposed to 2C-I in 2011
were teenagers. That statistic was before two fatalities and multiple overdoses
were linked to the drug in North Dakota.
"The unfortunate thing is if
kids who are overdosing on 2C-I go in to the hospital with a physical problem,
a lot of times they can't test for it so it doesn't show up as a drug
overdose," says Wold.
The fact that 2C-I is untraceable
in tests makes it more of a challenge for doctors to treat. It also contributes
to drug's growing popularity among high school and college-age kids. "Synthetic
drugs don't generally show up on drug tests and that's made it popular with
young adults, as well as people entering the military, college athletes, or
anyone who gets tested for drugs," Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson for the
Drug Enforcement Agency, tells Shine.
2C-I may be undetected in drug
tests, but it's effects are evident in emergency rooms. According to James
Mowry, the director of Indiana's Poison Control Center, 2-CI overdoses--on the
rise in the state--and have been known to cause seizures, kidney failure, and
fatally high blood pressure. "They do something that is called
'uncoupling." Mowry told and Indianapolis news station this month.
"Basically, their muscles get to the point they cannot uncontract, so they
sort of get rigid and then your temperature goes up really high and if you
don't treat them really aggressively, those people usually end up dying."
Officials are taking aggressive
measures to address this new national drug problem. In July, the DEA announced
Operation Log Jam, the first nationwide coordinated US Law enforcement strike
specifically targeting designer synthetic drugs. That same month, 2C-I was
classified as a Schedule 1 subtance, making possession and distribution of the
drug illegal. Those caught distributing even a small amount are facing serious
criminal charges. Stai's friend, who allegedly obtained the drug that caused
his overdose, has been charged with third degree murder.
While the drug's potential for
overdose is apparent, the specific cases of fatalities are confounding.
According to one site designed as a "fact sheet" for users, the
dosage of the drug, which also comes as a liquid or a pill, is difficult to
measure in powder form. When users snort the drug they could end up taking more
than they realize, prompting an overdose. But in the case of Stai, the powder
wasn't snorted, but melted into a chocolate bar and eaten.
Some speculate those "hobby
chemists"--making the drug using powders shipped from China, acetone and plant-based
materials--are to blame for concocting particularly strong or toxic batches.
"Anybody
with a little money to front can import chemicals, mix, and sell it," says
Carreno. "Many of these types of drugs were originally designed for
research to be used on animals, not people." In fact, 2C-I was first
synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, a psychopharmacologist and scientific
researcher. He's responsible for identifying the chemical make-up of the
so-called "2C" family, a group of hyper-potent psychedelic
synthetics. In 2011, 2C-E, a twin sister drug to 2C-I, was blamed for the death
of a Minnesota teenager and the overdose of 11 others.
Because of his medical research,
Shulgin has unintentionally become a godfather of the synthetic drug movement,
and his work has been reprinted and reduced to plain language on drug-related
web forums. "Drugs used to take longer to get around but now with the
internet they can spread by word of mouth online," says Carreno. If drugs
like Smiles are as viral as an internet meme, they have a similarly brief
life-span. Already, a newer, re-booted version of the drug is cropping up on
the other side of the planet, and by early accounts it's terrifying.
The new drug called 25b-Nbome, is
a derivative of 2C-I, that's sold in tab form. This past month, the drug has
been linked to the non-fatal overdoses of two young adults in Perth, Australia.
It's also be blamed for the death of a young man in the same area, who died
after repeatedly slamming his body into trees and power line poles while high
on the drug.
"Overdose on these drugs is
a reality... and can obviously result in dire consequences," a Perth
police department official warned. It isn't obvious to everyone. "I can't
recommend for anyone to go out and use this legally," says one alleged
2C-I user in a YouTube video with 12,000 views, "but why not?"
Yahoo Shine
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