25-I banned after Voodoo Fest death, Legislature to move forward ...

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) announced Friday it was banning the possession, manufacture and distribution of 25-I, the synthetic drug that resulted in the death of an Alabama student at last month's Voodoo Festival in New Orleans. DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein said he, along with the Legislature and police, would continue to target the class of drugs writ large.

Greenstein told NOLA.com health officials and police have seen a "very serious spike" in synthetic drug abuse in the last two years. Since then, the Louisiana Legislature has passed legislation allowing the DHH to unilaterally ban certain synthetic drugs immediately by emergency rule.

On Friday, taking advantage of his new authority, Greenstein and the DHH moved to make illegal the possession, manufacture and distribution of 25I-NBOMe, also known and 25-I or N-Bomb.

The drug will now be classified state-wide as a Schedule I substance - heroin, ecstasy and LSD are also in this group - and use or abuse will carry the maximum penalty under the law.

"It's been on our radar-tracking - synthetic drugs - for a long time," Greenstein told NOLA.com before Friday's press conference. He added because 25-I specifically is such a new drug, "we haven't been able to pinpoint" where it is most concentrated.

There have already been 25-I deaths this year in Minnesota, North Dakota, California and North Carolina. But the death of Little Rock-native Clayton Otwell, 21, at New Orleans' Voodoo Festival was the first confirmed 25-I death in Louisiana.

According to witnesses, after only one drop was placed in his nose, Otwell immediately started babbling incoherently. Within 30 minutes, he had a seizure and never regained consciousness. He died Tuesday after being put on life support at Tulane University Hospital.

The Louisiana State Crime Lab has confirmed three samples of 25-I since May 2012. But Greenstein told reporters there are "likely more cases we don't know about." The problem of synthetic drugs in Louisiana goes back more than two years.

Starting in 2009, emergency room doctors began alerting officials to the prevalence of new chemical drugs never before seen in the state. After police also began noting a "very high volume of complaints" to state poison control centers, health officials took note.

Lab tests then revealed the synthetic drugs to be "bath salts" - a methamphetamine-like narcotic made notorious after a Miami man attacked a homeless man in May. Although the man was later proven to not be under the influence of bath salt, the incident nonetheless brought the drug national attention.

State Rep. Ricky Templet, R-Gretna, and Sen. Fred Mills, R-New Iberia, moved quickly to champion anti-bath salt legislation in 2011. But, as Greenstein noted, manufacturers and sellers will continue to minutely change the chemical composition of new synthetic drugs to avoid prosecution. 25-I, chemically similar to LSD and ecstasy, was not banned under the anti-bath salt legislation.

"This is a whack-a-mole situation," Greenstein told NOLA.com. "Unscrupulous people will continue to concoct new drugs" to skirt new laws. "I have endless energy to attack this problem. If we can't ban a whole class of drugs, we will ban individual drugs. I will do this every week if I have to."

Also present at the press conference, State Rep. Kevin Pearson, R-Slidell, said he was planning to bring forth new legislation during the next session in the spring.

He said his staff is currently working on a bill that will work to outlaw synthetic drugs on a larger scale by targeting narcotics that "simulate, emulate, or mimic" 25-I and bath salts.

"We will be absolutely tenacious," Pearson added.

Forensic Chemist Ronald Porche said more legislation is necessary to combat the problem. "This drug class has to be studied and then [legislative] language has to be formed that is technically accurate - not too broad, not too specific," he told NOLA.com after Friday's press conference.

"We have to have progressive legislation to target synthetic drugs," he added, saying he believes the Legislature is going to move forward to further target synthetic cannabinoids in the next session.

"We have to go after the class," he said.

25-I is not federally controlled so the Drug Enforcement Administration is not yet tasked with tracking its expansion nationwide. Although little is known about the 25-I, Drug Section Supervisor Rebecca Nugent said it is available on the Internet on research chemical sites. The samples they have seen were traced back to manufacturers in China and India.

Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/11/25-i_banned_after_voodoo_fest.html

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