Designer Drugs in the News

Just as our new law regulating designer drugs is coming into force (July 1st) a challenge has emerged. The law is meant to prohibit the sale of synthetic drugs and plug a loophole that allows them to be put in as additives in products like bath salts or fertilizer. Everyone knows that people purchase them not for the labeled use, but previously they were legal to sell.

After several deaths across the nation, State Legislators moved to ban these substances. The lawsuits seeking an injunction to stop the new law have been filed by shop owners. They claim the law is too broad and would make other products illegal unintentionally. For instance, since the law is written to cover synthetics and “analogues,” things like hemp fiber or seeds sold as bird food might be illegal as well.

From a legislative perspective, the problem is in defining a class of substances that can’t be readily pinned down. A drug analogue isn’t the actual illegal substance, but a derivative. The derivatives are chemically distinct, although they may have similar properties. So a bath salt with an analogue might give an effect similar to amphetamine or cocaine. The DEA tries to regulate such things by listing possible synthetics, but only after they are known to have abuse potential.

With hundreds to thousands of new chemicals being made each year, it simply isn’t possible to regulate each one when it is found to have addiction potential. Manufacturers of the false incense or bath salts can simply change ingredients when some part of them become illegal. The law, now under review, attempted to classify substances, not by actual ingredient, but type of ingredient. Now it has to wind its way through the courts.