Drugs psychedelic - Bad Trip for Online Drug Peddlers

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Bad Trip for Online Drug Peddlers

Dan Clore

2005-07-06, 10:57 pm

Bad Trip for Online Drug Peddlers
By David McCandless

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68049,00.html
02:00 AM Jul. 06, 2005 PT

Suppliers of designer psychedelic drugs who sold their wares
on the internet face potential life terms in prison as their
cases come up for sentencing this month.

In a sting dubbed "Operation Web Tryp" that was carried out
last year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration shut
down five websites and arrested 10 site operators in
Louisiana, New York, Virginia and California for selling
lab-pure psychedelics online.

Known euphemistically as "research chemicals," the drugs
come from the same chemical families as LSD (tryptamines)
and mescaline (phenethylamines), but are too new to have
street names. Instead, they're referred to by abbreviated
lab names such as 5-MeO-AMT, 2-CT-7 and DiPT.

Ingestion of research chemicals results in mind-altering and
emotion-amplifying effects similar to those experienced by
users of more well-known psychedelics.

Most are far too psychedelically powerful for recreational
drug users. Instead they are championed by psychonauts --
drug hobbyists and experimenters, usually young men -- who
experiment alone or in small groups, sharing information and
"trip reports" online.

"They use them for spiritual exploration, psychotherapeutic
work or just recreational use," said "Murple," an
independent researcher who asked that his real name not be
printed. He documents the use of psychedelics for sites like
Erowid.

The first commercial research-chemical sites appeared about
five years ago to cater to this small underground community.
The industry grew slowly and hit its peak two years ago,
with big sites like AmericanChemicalSuppply.com and
OmegaFineChemicals.com dominating.

Some openly advertised on Google. Others chose to market
virally, seeding chat forums and drug discussion groups with
mentions of their products.

All handled thousands of orders every week from the United
States and Europe, using the tools of e-commerce to
accelerate business. Most offered one-click shopping systems
and let buyers make payments using credit cards, PayPal or
Western Union. Once ordered, drugs were delivered the next
day by UPS and other carriers, internationally if necessary.

RacResearch.com, based in New York, offered more than 20
different drugs for sale, with prices starting at $50 and
rising to $350 per gram (excluding delivery) for more potent
and exotic substances like 5-MeO-DMT, a synthetic version of
the powerful psychoactive found in the venom of the Bufo
alvarius toad. The site made more than $500,000 in 14 months.

Another site -- pondman.nu -- appeared to be a
landscape-gardening business, specializing in fish and
aquatic supplies. A link, however, led to a full-scale
research chemicals order page. Police put the estimated
weekly revenue at around $20,000.

The sites competed among themselves for the best customer
service, the purest product and the fastest deliveries.
Seasonal offers, 3-for-2 deals and free sample packs were
commonplace.

Despite its high profile and brazen online advertising, the
trade remained undetected by law enforcement for five years
until a "rave-style party" was busted at Hampton Roads Naval
Base in Virginia. Sailors arrested for selling narcotics at
the event, police discovered, had bought their drugs in bulk
online. The investigation grew and finally led to a
multi-state DEA sting in July 2004.

Thanks to their novelty, most research chemicals are not
specifically listed as controlled substances under U.S. drug
laws. Many site operators and customers believed,
erroneously, that this made the drugs legal, or at least
left them in a gray area that would protect them from
prosecution.

However, under the Federal Analogue Act the possession and
supply of substances "substantially similar" in effect or
chemical structure to controlled drugs is illegal.

In May, in the first prosecution resulting from the sting
operation, a jury found David Linder of Bullhead City,
Arizona, webmaster of pondman.nu, guilty on 27 charges,
including drug conspiracy and money laundering. He was
sentenced to a total of 410 years in prison -- and ordered
to pay back $700,000 in profits from the website. Linder,
52, is hoping to appeal.

The severity of his sentence was related in part to the
death of an 18-year-old man in New York who overdosed on the
drug alpha-methyltryptamine, or AMT, purchased from Linder's
site, prosecutors said.

Others arrested during the sting are due to be sentenced
over the next two months. Michael Burton, operator of
AmericanChemicalSupply.com, faces an expected life term this
month after a 21-year-old customer from Louisiana fatally
overdosed on one of his products.

According to the DEA, the research-chemicals industry has
been the direct cause of two deaths and a further 14
nonfatal overdoses.

"Deaths from use of designer psychedelics however appear to
be isolated tragedies due to irresponsible use rather than
the norm," said Murple. "Like MDMA, when used with proper
precautions, the majority of the chemicals seem to be
relatively harmless -- if not out-and-out pleasurable."

However, those who document their use stress the dangers of
reckless experimentation. Erowid, for example, uses a
version of the biohazard warning symbol to designate all
research chemicals.

"It is not reasonable to assume that these chemicals are in
any way 'safe' to use recreationally," reads the site's
disclaimer, which notes that users' reactions to research
chemicals can vary wildly, with adverse effects ranging from
bad trips to fatal overdoses.

It is unclear whether those who purchased the drugs online
will also face prosecution. Credit-card information from
customers in the United Kingdom was handed over to British
police who carried out a series of dawn raids last December.
More than 20 individuals were arrested and charged with
possession with intent to supply. Many face potential prison
sentences. There are no reports of any U.S. customers being
arrested.

The commercial research-chemicals trade is for the most part
no longer active.

"Some chemicals still appear to be available from websites
in China," said Murple. "My gut feeling though is that they
are largely scams."

Research chemical use continues underground, however, said
Murple, and will "as long as there are people interested in
psychedelics who have internet connections."

There are currently more than a hundred research chemicals
in existence. Many are the invention of California
biochemist Alexander Shulgin. A one-time expert witness for
the DEA, the 80-year-old is famed for his work in developing
a recipe for MDMA (ecstasy) back in the '70s.

Shulgin predicts there will be around 2,000 new psychoactive
drugs by 2050.

Underground chemists use the detailed recipes published in
his books -- Tikhal and Phikal -- to synthesize new
experimental drugs and novel variants of existing
psychoactives, many of which slip through the gaps in
international drug legislation.

His take: "I make unknown materials. It's the government's
job to make them illegal."

--
Dan Clore

My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...edanclorenecro/
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"

RMJon23

2005-07-06, 10:57 pm

Thanks for this one (and all your other ones), Dan.

Even in my most optimistic moments THESE days, I don't see a reasoned
and informed public discussion on the Shulgin stuff in particular and
private use of tryptamines and phenethylamines in general anytime
soon...and I'm looking through the Hubble space telescope!

Yep: I can see cosmic microwave radiation from the Big Bang, but
there's nothing about sensible talk on taboo mind drugs anywhere on the
horizon.

We may always adjust our lenses and possibly find something, though.
Let us continue tinkering with the instruments...

-rmjon23 de Los Angeles
"Of course I am a wanderer, a pilgrim on this earth. But can you say
you are anything more?" - Goethe