DEA Warns of New Psychedelic Drug High Schoolers are Discovering
February 8, 2006 - news10.net

There's a new psychedelic drug invading local high schools that's easy to get but hard to identify. It's making its way from research labs through the Internet to kids who act as Guinea pigs by taking them.

The powerful synthetic hallucinogen called 2C-I is for sale on the Internet along with many others sold as research chemicals.

Kris Zurinksy of Sacramento County found a small bottle of liquid while searching his nephew Eric's backpack. The boy told him what it was and not to worry. "When he finally started talking about it, he said, 'Don't even worry about it. It's not illegal. Lots of kids are starting to do this. It's from New Zealand.'"

"It takes 20 minutes to kick in," the boy said. "You get energy, you want to do something. Things morph and you see colors. Everything seems weird and ironic."

2C-I stands for 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenethylamine. Online it's shown as coming in a pill marked with an "i" or powder form but teenagers News10 talked to are getting it as a liquid. "I got it in a water bottle, it was sold to me, but you can smell it. It smells funny," one teen who's used 2C-I said.

The drug and its cousins fall under the Analog Act, which means if it looks and acts like an illegal drug it is illegal. The Internet is a great street corner for the dealers.

The new drugs are so new, their potential for addiction, allergic reactions or overdose threshold are unknown. Chemists working on them switch out molecules to vary the effect, and with no human or animal experimentation no one can tell for sure what they'll do in the body.

Websites that sell the drugs send mixed messages as well. One home page declares them as "quality research chemicals for personal and or business use," while saying in very small print on the disclaimer, the chemicals are "offered for laboratory and manufacturing use only".

Drug enforcement agents say the drugs are so new they are just now beginning to track them down. They say that means parents and guardians need to be extra vigilant. "[In order to get these drugs] you need four things," said Gordon Taylor of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "You need a computer with Internet access, you need a money order or credit card, you need a mail delivery location like a home or post office box, and fourth and most importantly, you need the desire to play Russian Roulette with your brain."

Some Nevada Union High School administrators first learned about 2C-I from the report News10 aired Tuesday (see video link). It made them sit up and take notice. "The scary part about it," said Assistant Principal Bruce Kinseth, "Is that it's easily concealed so it might literally be under our noses and we might not know it." In fact, DEA agents first came across the drug when breaking up what they at first thought was a meth lab in Nevada County.

Nevada Union Principal Marty Mathieson also had some advice for parents to help them combat this new drug threat. He said to know the child's friends, don't hestitate to stay up and greet children when they return from being out with friends, keep alert to their child's behavior, and a child's room should not be off-limits to parents. Mathieson also warned that if a child's friends are partiers, don't think the child isn't with them and not going along with whatever they're doing.