How secretive Chinese drugs labs outrun laws on synthetic highs

[Chip (OP)]

source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-secretive-chinese-drugs-labs-beat-laws-on-synthetic-highs-2016-05-16

Synthetic recreational drugs worth millions of dollars to are mailed to clients in the U.S. and elsewhere.

How secretive Chinese drugs labs outrun laws on synthetic highs


French customs smashed a ring smuggling an Ecstasy-like stimulant sent from China.

BEIJING (Caixin Online) — A new breed of Chinese chemist bent on beating the legal system is helping satisfy global demand for synthetic recreational drugs.

Working in clandestine labs across the country, these drug-making chemists are tweaking formulas to produce synthetics that get people high without breaking the law or, if illegal ingredients are indispensible for the desired effect, without getting caught.

They’re managing to stay one or more steps ahead of the authorities — including police and even Supreme People’s Court justices — who’ve been working harder in recent years to control the production, export and domestic use of psychoactive substances.

Drug experts say the chemists have what it takes to adjust chemical combinations quickly and get around a new drug law or prohibition almost as soon as it takes effect. They’re also nimble exporters who sell their wares internationally through the Internet and find creative ways to ship products overseas.

Most of the psychoactive substances developed in recent years by the nation’s chemists have been or are being produced for drug users overseas, said Wei Xiaojun, general office deputy director at the China National Narcotics Control Committee (CNNCC), an anti-drug-abuse task force representing 23 central government ministries.

Orders for Chinese-made synthetics are often placed by overseas clients through the Internet, Wei said. The products are then disguised and shipped through standard postal services.

Chemists working for synthetics drugs makers can design new products quickly by combining cheap and fairly common chemicals, said a researcher who works at a government testing facility called the National Laboratory for Narcotic Drugs and asked not to be named. By breaking down a substance into its main components, the researcher said, a lab chemist can design and produce “a new generation of a product.”

A variety of synthetic drugs may share the same chemical base, “like a big tree,” the researcher said. “The trunk is the same, but it’s different because of changes on the small branches.”

the articles can be seen in full here

[Zoops]

2g of dibutylone (structure below) should be in my PO box today when I get home from work, according to the tracking information.

[Griffin]

I am worried that with the rising use of RC's that america is going to pass a law that says that anything that can be used as a mind altering substance is illegal to sell, use, or buy. Like a broad law that could cover everything and it is used on a case by case basis for the stuff thought to be drugs that they don't have a law for yet. So basically the law would be written saying anything that could be used as a drug or mind altering substance is illegal if they want to charge you or something along the lines of that,

I wouldn't put it past the US to do that, we are just a dead senators kid away or a few big news stories of kids dying and I could see them all passing it the day they write it. Basically anything that could be suspected of drug use that isn't classified yet can be said to be an illegal drug and you could be charged doesn't matter what it is, and probable cause that you were going to use it as a drug could be as little as a previous misdemeanor pot possession charge from 1968 or the way its packaged if they are unsure if its a drug or not.

They could probably say anything that is a synthetic opioid being used or bought by anyone not doing federally cleared testing/research on it is now illegal to buy, possess, sale, or transport. Then on down the line to the other big drugs. Does anyone know if they could do some stupid ass law that covers just about everything? I mean obviously they could pass any law they want to regardless because they are the US government but is there anything stopping them from doing it without any hassle?

[dizzle]

well there's the "look alike substance" law


that basucally says "it doesn't have to be a drug, or even have any effects but if it's presented as one, or thought to be one by someone" then it's illegal.


if that is unclear. let me explain:


** Dizzle walks into room with ziplock bag full of flour**

"hey griffin want to try this super good shit? you'll totally get high"


-----bam, coppers arrest dizzle for possession of a look alike substance. Dizzle laughs because it's just flour and he knows that totally legal.


coppers get last laugh as dizzle gets a felony charge.


look it up, it's asinine....

[Zoops]

More likely what they'll do to eliminate all these RCs is to pass legislation outlawing any substance that it embraced by a generic structural formula, just like they do with patent claims for chemical compounds.

They already do something like this in the UK, for some classes of drugs, like the fentanyl analog laws over there are written like, "...and any substance wherein the piperidine ring is further substituted with an alkyl or alkoxy, and further wherein the phenyl ring is replaced with any heteroaromatic ring, or is substituted with halogen, alkyl, hydroxy, alkoxy or alkyl."

I think what would actually be best would be to have a generic structural formula like the one shown below (this would be for phenethylamine hallucinogens), wherein "X" is at least 2 substituents but no more than 4, selected from the group consisting of alkyl, alkoxy and halogen, and wherein "Y" is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, carbonyl, hydroxy, alkoxy and alkyl, and wherein "A" is selected from the group consisting of hydrogen, alkyl, hydroxyalky, alkylaryl and  haloalkyl.

This generic formula would no doubt embrace thousands of non-active compounds, but it would also take care of hundreds of possible psychoactive drugs as well. That way, they wouldn't have to constantly draft new laws to include new substances as they came out.

Let's hope they don't do something like this.

[Taytoechip]

well there's the "look alike substance" law


that basucally says "it doesn't have to be a drug, or even have any effects but if it's presented as one, or thought to be one by someone" then it's illegal.


if that is unclear. let me explain:


** Dizzle walks into room with ziplock bag full of flour**

"hey griffin want to try this super good shit? you'll totally get high"


-----bam, coppers arrest dizzle for possession of a look alike substance. Dizzle laughs because it's just flour and he knows that totally legal.


coppers get last laugh as dizzle gets a felony charge.


look it up, it's asinine....

What if you never said anything to anyone about it being a drug? or not trying to sell/give to anyone?
like you just roll into a mcdonalds full of cops, pull out your bag of flour, not say a word, cut out a gigantic line and take that shit home right in front of everyone. get up, clean table, walk away.

Hopefully in the future all drugs are legal, and we can all be like

[thetalkingasshole]

This article name is misleading
I totally thought they were going to give me detailed instructions on making deschloroketamine 

[dizzle]

I'm having what I believe is called an epiphany rightr now.


It's ALL about perception here people. LITERALLY.


thnk about it. Labs in China, creating new drugs by altering the old ones SLIGHTLY. Look how the articles talk about them, how they present them, as fucking criminals.


Now, think about a new drug release from a pharmaceutical company, they talk about them like they're saving the world, making it a better place. While most of the time, those drugs from the pharmecuetical companies are FAR more dangerous long term since they won't just take a drug and alter it slightly, no, that's not patentable, that's not worth enough money to the greedy fucks. They fucking create totally new drugs, test them for like a year, and say "meh. it didn't TOTALLY fuck up any of the rats/people/cats that we gave it to, and the ones that it did totally fuck up, well, we can find a way to exclude them from the study's results"


So, look at those two different things, and the way they are presented, and the way they are preceived. It's heinous, honestly, it makes me sick to think about what people in our world have to go through, and, honestly, I think it all comes down to money, not morals, not what drugs cause what side effects or behaviours, simple down to money and nothing more.

[Mr.pooper]

@Taytoechip I would love to see someone film themselves show up at a Starbucks with a bunch of cops, and pull out a big bag of flour n start chopping up lines in front of them.

@dizzle yeah perception is key. The biggest drug dealer in America is Starbucks slanging simple sugars and caffeine. Simple sugar has been linked to a HUGE amount of health problems, and one university study claims it to be 5x more addictive than cocaine. Statistically 3 out of 4 people who try caffeine become daily users. Ever see someone who drinks coffee every morning not get their cup of black stuff? They go into withdrawal for days unless they get their fix of black liquid.

Our government also has meth as a felony to posses or distribute, yet they prescribe it under the guise of ADD medicine. It's called desoxyn, pharm grade legal meth...they also have cocaine for eye surgeries...they have made "spice" and synthetic cannabinoids illegal, yet prescribe marinol...and let's not forget about all the opiates they manufacture/posses/sell...

@Griffin our government is trying to make anything psychoactive illegal in some way. Just give it a few years when you can get a DUI for having too much caffeine in your system.

They are already starting the steps to make nicotine products made illegal with the raising of age to buy tobacco. My economics teacher back in college said eventually there will be such a small percent of people using nicotine that the government will profit more by making it illegal, rather than regulating. Seemed like a crazy theory at the time, but seems plausible to me now.

[theSWPK]

In my state your flour would land you in jail for 3 plus years while the state lab takes its sweet time that runs it. Friends out on felony bond for 3 years for the "cocaine" he had on him (3-meo-pcp). If he was poor he'd be rotting in County for a crime he didn't commit.

[Taytoechip]

what if you walk into walmart, buy flour, on the way out stop at the bench, cut out your line and handle business? like you just like snorting flour. is that illegal?
 
i mean to be fair with your friend, it was still a substance? its not like the cop would rub some on his gums to see. (at least not in public)

[theSWPK]

what if you walk into walmart, buy flour, on the way out stop at the bench, cut out your line and handle business? like you just like snorting flour. is that illegal?
 
i mean to be fair with your friend, it was still a substance? its not like the cop would rub some on his gums to see. (at least not in public)

The cop claimed to have tested it in one of those snap baggy test with the liquid that turns blue. He didn't show the test to my friend but said he was busted for cocaine. Said it tested positive for coke, which is literally impossible.

[Roman Totale]

Sale/distribution/(possibly possession) of counterfeit drugs, even if totally inert, is a crime in most states.

EDIT:  Ah, Dizzle beat me way upthread.

[DeadCat]

Sale/distribution/(possibly possession) of counterfeit drugs, even if totally inert, is a crime in most states.

It is true ...to an extent. The key is the schedule of the original drug. Yeah if you somehow are an alchemist and transform table salt into cocain, you have broken a law and more if you distribute it.

However, things like benzos (for ample) are Schedule 3 and their nalogs (synthetic almost identical but not) drugs aren't illegal unless the states or the Feds specifically add them to the "Scheduled" list. That's why you can't buy Xanax over the counter but you can buy as much Etizolam as you want (except in the 3 or 4 states that have listed it as a controlled susbstance and writtenlaws to jail people who have it.

[Roman Totale]

@DeadCat  Right, that's how the the 1985 Federal Analog Act doesn't cover benzo analogs while it does cover fent analogs.  (Just to be pedantic, the benzos are Sch. IV.  With Vicodin gone, Sch. III is looking pretty barren, other than the all-important buprenorphine, plus Talwin NX, stronger codeine componds, and some diet pills, I think.  Same with Sch. V: essentially just pregabalin, diphenoxylate/atropine, phentermine, and some low-strength codeine compounds.  Sch. IV and Sch. II, meanwhile, are bursting at the seams.)