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 surfacing in many parts of the
country.
“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 looks 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 dropping 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 come from user
accounts, many of which detail frightening experiences.
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 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 increased, Wold says it’s difficult to measure it’s
growth in numbers.
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 new and untraceable in
standard drug 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 have been known to cause seizures, kidney
failure, and fatally high blood pressure.
“They do something that is called ‘uncoupling.”
Mowry told an 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.”
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 sister drug to 2C-I, was blamed for the death of a Minnesota
teenager and the overdose of 11 others.
Because of his research, Shulgin has become an
unintentional icon of the synthetic drug movement, and his formulas have 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 can be 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 been
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.
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