Pubdate: Sat, 04 May 2013
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2013 The Arizona Republic
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: JJ Hensley
Page: B3

'N-BOMB' DRUG STIRS FEAR IN VALLEY

Police Investigating 2 Deaths Possibly Tied to Synthetic

A drug marketed as an alternative to LSD or mescaline could be among
the most powerful and potentially deadly of the synthetic drugs that
have inundated the market in recent years, police and physicians believe.

A 19-year-old from the West Valley was in a medically induced coma for
four days after taking the drug, a synthetic hallucinogen known as
"n-bomb," and would have died if he had not received treatment when he
did, according to a physician.

Scottsdale police are investigating whether the deaths this year of
two 18-year-olds are linked to the drug.

"That is certainly a possibility, based on what witnesses are telling
us - that either this drug is involved, some variant of that," said
Sgt. Mark Clark, a Scottsdale police spokesman. "Certainly, when
anyone becomes deceased from a possibility of any of these new drugs
that are out there, we are obviously concerned."

The first case in Scottsdale involved an 18-year-old Saguaro High
School student who died in late January after taking what he assumed
was LSD.

Scottsdale police are also investigating the death of an 18-year-old
Arizona State University student who authorities believe died after
taking the drug last weekend.

In the January case, Noah Carrasco lost consciousness shortly after
taking the dose, administered through nose drops. An onlooker thought
Carrasco simply needed to get some fresh air and sleep it off, said
Carrasco's mother, Susan Wadsworth.

A friend drove Carrasco around for a while but later became more
concerned and took Carrasco to the hospital about 1:40 a.m. on Jan.
25.

"He'd been dead already at least for a couple of hours," Wadsworth
said. "They didn't know that that's what they were taking. Myson was
not a reckless person. He decided to try what he thought was acid, and
obviously I didn't know this at the time. But he would never have
tried something he knew was that dangerous."

Clark said it's the same story with all the synthetic drugs. Whether
they're marketed as synthetic marijuana, cocaine or ecstasy, there is
no reliable way to know what they are made of or how the body will
react.

Ignorance about the drugs stretches from the streets to the crime
labs, where scientists have to try to determine what substances are
present in order for investigators to know what they're dealing with.

"One of the problems with all these drugs is that we don't know how
they extract out of blood and how to recover them," said Vince
Figarelli, superintendent of the Arizona Department of Public Safety's
crime lab, where analysts have seen a couple of "n-bomb" cases.

"With most of these, there are no clinical trials," he said. "These
weren't designed or approved for ingestion for medicinal purposes.
There are no tests done on human subjects for us to rely on, or to go
in and do an analysis of blood on the back end."

The drug was first synthesized in1991 by a Bay Area chemist and was
banned in the United States in 2012, said Dr. Frank LoVecchio, a
physician at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center who co-authored a
report on the unnamed 19-yearold's case.

A Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman in Phoenix said
investigators nationwide believe the drug is sold online and most
often imported from foreign markets. She said the substance gets the
street name "n-bomb" because of the series of chemicals that are key
ingredients: N-BOMe.

The active chemical in one popular version of the drug is referred to
as 2C-I, but other variations of that chemical have been found as
chemists attempt to avoid the federal government's ban on that ingredient.

The variations are a particular concern to Scottsdale police, Clark
said.

"What you have is some amateur chemists who are trying to change
the

Scottsdale police spokesman formulation of a drug that's been declared
an illegal substance to try to stay ahead of the law," Clark said.
"Kids - and it's mostly kids who are taking this - need to understand
that this chemical variant could be changed by a very, very little bit
and it can prove to be very harmful. Just because someone says that
it's safe or someone says that it's acid, everyone's metabolism is
different."

The effort to sell "n-bomb" and its variants as drugs similar to LSD
or mescaline is nothing more than a marketing gimmick, LoVecchio said.

"They act very similar to methamphetamine," LoVecchio said. "Except
this lasts longer, (has) worse fever (and) longer seizures."

The 19-year-old patient that LoVecchio treated was brought in after
taking the drug, sold as "smiles," at a rave. He suffered from
seizures shortly thereafter, according to the medical report.

Physicians could not stop the seizures, so the teen was placed into a
medically induced coma. For the next four days, physicians treated the
teenager with a battery of drugs, attempting to bring him out of a
coma each day only to have the seizures resume.

"The agitation and hallucinations resolved on hospital day five," the
report states, and the patient was sent home the following day.

Two weeks later, he was still suffering from episodes of
forgetfulness, according to the report.

Evidence of the drug affecting Arizona users is relatively thin so
far, with few police agencies reporting that their investigators have
encountered "n-bomb" and its variants and many unaware of its lethal
potential. Only a handful of fatalities have been reported nationwide,
and physicians at Banner Good Samaritan wrote a report in February
about the drug's effects on the 19-year-old, framing it as one of the
first laboratory-confirmed cases.

LoVecchio said he has since seen similar cases, but he was not aware
of any deaths linked to the drug.

A law Gov. Jan Brewer signed in April makes it illegal to possess one
of the backbone chemicals in the drug and helps to ensure that the
variants are illegal too, Figarelli said.

But it is a near-constant race for investigators to keep up with
chemists who try to stay in front of the changing legal landscape when
it comes to synthetics, according to investigators, making it more
difficult for police to identify and spread the word about potentially
lethal drugs that are making their way on the market.

"That is the biggest problem we face," said Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a
Phoenix police spokesman and former narcotics detective.
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