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Invisible5-HT2A
Registered: 01/30/10 Happy 14th Shroomiversary!
Posts: 1,794
Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona
    #14534280 - 05/30/11 03:04 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_97e4ae5a-89a5-11e0-a928-001cc4c03286.html

One man believed werewolves were attacking him. Another kneeled down, raised his hands above his head and recited Bible passages to the emergency room staff at Winona Health. Another saw his heart beating outside of his chest. These are just a few stories from Winona police, attorneys and doctors who these days rarely make it through a workday without encountering someone on "plant food."

The drug is widely available locally and online. And it's legal - at least until July 1.

Plant food is a powdery chemical with effects similar to cocaine, amphetamine and Ecstasy. The synthetic drug can be smoked, ingested or injected.

The active ingredient, mephedrone, produces euphoria - as well as intense hallucinations, heart palpitations, and other adverse effects that in the worst cases lead to death.

There's no accepted dosage, and those on plant food sometimes compulsively take more and more, meaning that overdoses are common. Long-term effects have not been studied.

Plant food has been popular - and banned - in Europe for years, but just recently arrived in Winona.

Users aren't limited to Winona County, but local authorities say the drug simply isn't as big of a problem in other areas of the state.

Since plant food was first documented in Winona last fall, its prevalence has skyrocketed.

‘Coming in just high on this stuff'

According to Winona Police Chief Paul Bostrack, plant food was first mentioned in a police report on Nov. 11, 2010, by officers responding to a fight at a downtown bar. Just before he was arrested, a suspect tried to toss away a small bag of white powder labeled "White Gold Plant Food - Not for human consumption."

Police soon identified it as mephedrone, Bostrack said.

"It was the new drug in town," he said.

There's no hard data on the number of plant-food cases police have dealt with. Because the drug is legal, there's no specific entry for it in police files, though officers often note it in incident reports.

However, the sharp increase in the number of people taken to detox since plant food entered the scene is one clear indicator, Bostrack said.

The five-year average for local detox cases is 63, he said. In less than five months this year, officers have already taken 47 people to detox.

Carmaine Sturino, a Winona defense attorney who works primarily with juveniles, said that starting in January, she was suddenly unable to finish a court hearing without one of her clients referencing plant food.

"It was just crazy," she said. "It was out of nowhere."

In recent months Winona County judges Mary Leahy, Nancy Buytendorp and Jeffrey Thompson have all specifically addressed the issue in court, at times ordering users to stay away from plant food as a condition of probation.

Winona County Attorney Karin Sonneman noticed plant food's arrival about the same time, also in juvenile court.

"They were coming in just high on this stuff," she said.

Winona Health saw a similar trend: The hospital currently treats an average of six plant-food patients per week.

Rebecca Lamberty, the head of Winona Health's emergency room, called plant food "a very large problem" in the ER.

It's not just the medical treatment that's an issue: Patients are typically paranoid, fearful and at times physically aggressive toward staff, she said.

She said what surprised her is that users don't reflect a single demographic, instead coming from all ages and backgrounds.

Dangerous hallucinations: The devil makes three

Users are often terrified that they'll be attacked by an alien, demon or devil - the three phantoms users most frequently hallucinate.

Many users who end up at the hospital are brought there by police officers who responded to burglary or assaults - also hallucinations.

There is little hospital staff and law enforcement officials can do with hallucinating users. Some are sedated and monitored until the drug wears off. Others are transported to detox.

Hallucinations aren't the only danger.

Many plant-food users don't eat or sleep and are often exhausted and sick. Sturino said she has seen clients lose 30 to 40 pounds in a single month.

"They're just physically deteriorating," she said.

The drug also causes heart palpitations, blurred vision, hot flashes and other maladies, according to various reports and studies. Some users have reported that their extremities turned blue after using plant food.

Since plant food isn't regulated, its purity fluctuates wildly.

A user who takes the same dosage twice could consume 20 percent of the drug the first time and 100 percent the next.

That puts users at a high risk of overdose.

"I'm convinced I'm going to lose a kid by the end of summer," Sturino said of her juvenile clients.

Leahy, who has seen a number of plant food cases come through her court, shares that concern.

"We're going to lose somebody," she said.

Illegal but likely not gone

A bill signed into law last week by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton will ban the sale or possession of plant food effective July 1. The bill was championed by state Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, who has called plant food "a very serious and dangerous issue" in Winona.

The bill adds mephedrone and other synthetic drugs, like bath salts, C2-E and C2-1, to the state's controlled-substance list. Those caught selling or possessing the synthetics could be convicted of a felony.

Leahy said she is hopeful the new legislation will decrease the availability of the drug.

However, studies in England, which outlawed plant food a year ago, have shown that about two-thirds of users still consume the drug at the same rate - they just pay twice as much for it.

And Sturino said some of her juvenile clients have reported that dealers dish the drug out for free.

"It is the scariest thing since the meth scene," Leahy said.


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OfflineSyntheticbreakfast

Registered: 09/19/10
Posts: 27
Loc: Canada Flag
Last seen: 11 years, 7 months
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: 5-HT2A]
    #14534653 - 05/30/11 07:13 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

However, studies in England, which outlawed plant food a year ago, have shown that about two-thirds of users still consume the drug at the same rate - they just pay twice as much for it.




Really? Surprising, surely making it illegal would make it disappear...


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OfflineMushie23
Entheogens
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Registered: 11/19/10
Posts: 789
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 7 years, 10 months
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: Syntheticbreakfast]
    #14534752 - 05/30/11 08:04 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Plant Food?  LOL, the things people do to get high.


--------------------
Eat Mushrooms----plug into life and nature.


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OfflineElectric Sheep
Stranger


Registered: 02/04/10
Posts: 151
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: Mushie23]
    #14534767 - 05/30/11 08:11 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Keep in mind that the plant food and/or bath salts are just cover-ups that the companies producing and/or retailing these substances in an attempt to prevent themselves from any liability - same reason they are usually labeled "not for human consumption"

Either way, buying and ingesting a substance that you have literally no clue as to what the ingredients therein are, is a good way to fuck yourself up... It seems more drug-naive people are willing to try these research chems cuz you can buy them from stores, they don't care that they tend to be more damaging then most commonly thought of illegal drugs.

plantfood/bathsalts = :feelsbadman:

and

:happyweed: = :feelsgoodman: x100


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InvisibleLobsterSauceDiscord
 User Gallery

Registered: 11/09/08
Posts: 19,884
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: Electric Sheep]
    #14534781 - 05/30/11 08:15 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

If it makes ordinary house plants 10ft tall,just think of what it'll do to the human body:eek:


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InvisibleDutchie3k
Psychic Drifter
Male


Registered: 12/16/08
Posts: 348
Loc: this hazy bubble, state o...
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: LobsterSauce] * 1
    #14534855 - 05/30/11 08:42 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

However, studies in England, which outlawed plant food a year ago, have shown that about two-thirds of users still consume the drug at the same rate - they just pay twice as much for it.





GOV'T WINNNN!!!


--------------------
"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.  The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later"


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Offlinetacodude
Old Soul
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Registered: 07/20/10
Posts: 1,753
Last seen: 2 years, 7 months
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: Dutchie3k]
    #14536012 - 05/30/11 01:23 PM (12 years, 7 months ago)

WTF IS C2-E and C2-1.... I thought someone was just misspelling 2c-I


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Offlineshroomzi8
king of the wild fronteer
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Registered: 10/04/10
Posts: 1,764
Loc: Valencia, Spain Flag
Last seen: 7 years, 3 months
Re: Use of plant food drug explodes in Winona [Re: Syntheticbreakfast]
    #14539478 - 05/31/11 06:32 AM (12 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Syntheticbreakfast said:
Quote:

However, studies in England, which outlawed plant food a year ago, have shown that about two-thirds of users still consume the drug at the same rate - they just pay twice as much for it.




Really? Surprising, surely making it illegal would make it disappear...




:whathesaid:


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