New legislation targets skyrocketing use of synthetic meth
By Beth Musgrave – bmusgrave@herald-leader.com
FRANKFORT — A Western Kentucky lawmaker wants the state to outlaw a type of synthetic drug that mimics the effects of methamphetamine or cocaine.
Democratic Rep. John Tilley of Hopkinsville, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, prefiled legislation this week that would make manufacturing or trafficking in MDPV a Class A misdemeanor. Those arrested for possession could face a Class B misdemeanor.
The bill mirrors legislation that passed last year that outlaws Salvia and K2, which mimic the effects of marijuana.
Law enforcement officers have seen the use of MDPV, a chemical component made in a laboratory, skyrocket in recent months, Tilley said.
“It has four times the potency of Ritalin and mimics drugs like Ecstasy and methamphetamine, and if we don’t get a handle on it now, it could quickly get out of control,” Tilley said in a news release.
MDVP, which is known as methylenedioxypyrovalerone, is also known as “red dove” and “Zoom.” It is just the latest in a string of synthetic drugs designed to mimic common illegal drugs.
“They started showing up in Europe in 2007,” said Van Ingram, the director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. “Most of those countries banned the substances in 2008.”
The manufacturers started marketing MDVP in the United States as bath salts or plant food. It can be purchased in some tobacco shops, gas stations and adult novelty stores, Ingram said.
“They even put it on the package ‘Not for human consumption,’” Ingram said.
The substance came to Tilley’s attention because of use around the Fort Campbell area, which is in Tilley’s legislative district. But Ingram said Kentucky State Police are starting to see more MDVP cases throughout Kentucky.
Emergency rooms are also reporting more overdoses as a result of MDVP.
“In the last three months, more than 100 cases of MDPV overdose have been reported to poison centers with more than 75 percent occurring in Louisiana and Kentucky,” said Henry Spiller, the director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Control Center.
Spiller is working with poison control colleagues in Louisiana and Oklahoma to look at the effects of MDPV, a drug that has never been tested in humans.
The people they are seeing in emergency rooms are those who have used drugs for a long time and switched to the synthetics. MDVP is causing major psychotic breaks or episodes in hardened drug users, Spiller said.
Users of MDPV also show up in emergency rooms with physical ailments such as increased heart rate, seizures and other problems.
“These aren’t first-time users,” Spiller said of the people seeking medical attention. “They are getting agitated, confused and suicidal.”
There have been at least three cases in Louisiana where people have been admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Spiller and his colleagues are not sure if the damage caused by the drug to the brain is permanent.
Louisiana and Kentucky starting seeing the overdoses early in 2010, “but now it’s just about everywhere,” Spiller said of MDVP.
Spiller said he was able to purchase MDVP from a local gas station. He had it analyzed and confirmed that the product was MDVP.
After Kentucky banned Salvia, which is organic, and K2, which is synthetic, the federal government followed Kentucky’s lead. The Drug Enforcement Agency recently banned K2 for a year, Ingram said.
Ingram said he is optimistic that the bill will win approval in the legislative session that begins in January.
“I think the legislature recognizes the importance of protecting consumers from substances that we know very little about,” Ingram said.
Filed Under: Featured • KY General Assembly • State Government
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