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Breaking Bad: Digital Drug Sales, Analog Drug Deaths

LogicSoDeveloped

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Joined
Oct 12, 2010
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The feds and a prosecutor say a Houston company selling synthetic drugs on the Internet is responsible for the deaths of teenagers in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Charles Carlton was in Katy 1,400 miles away when a 17-year-old kid named Elijah started foaming at the mouth from the drugs Carlton had sold online.

In June 2012, Elijah Stai and his friend Adam Budge were in Budge's home in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, mixing a white powder called 25-I-NBOME into chocolate, having no idea what the hell they were doing. Budge didn't know what the powder was; it was something that had caught his eye after he broke into his weed dealer's apartment and found a box containing a few sweetener-sized packets of the stuff. It would cost Budge his freedom and Stai his life. Carlton, a 28-year-old father of two, wouldn't know it for a few more months, but it would overturn his life as well.

After Budge shared the special chocolate with Stai, the two went to McDonald's, then returned to the Budge home. That's when, according to media reports, Stai freaked. He shook and growled and banged his head against the ground. Budge figured his friend was just having a bad trip. Budge's father was home at the time and, incredibly, deferred to his son's unsound judgment. But later that morning, after Stai stopped breathing, Budge's father called 911. At the hospital, Stai was placed on life support. Three days later, his parents signed the papers to pull the plug.

Stai was the region's second casualty of Carlton's 25-I that week, according to federal prosecutors. An 18-year-old named Wesley Sweeney bought some of the drug from Budge and, two nights before Stai died, laid it out in long lines at a house party in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Sweeney and his friend 18-year-old Christian Bjerk tried some. Bjerk's autopsy would indicate that he hadn't inhaled any of the powder — he may have dabbed some on his fingertips. It was enough to cause a bad reaction. Later that night, he walked outside and died face-down on the ground. His buddy Sweeney was found in a park, naked, by cops, and taken to the hospital and later to court. His next stop will be prison.

By August 2012, an aggressive federal prosecutor in North Dakota named Chris Myers had put together a conspiracy case tying the deaths in North Dakota — and other deaths and overdoses in Minnesota — to Houston. According to an indictment, Carlton and his company's IT guy, John Polinski, bought "research chemicals" — synthetic drugs — from suppliers in China, Europe, Canada and elsewhere and sold them online.

Ever since the Federal Analog Act became law in 1986, dealers of analog drugs — substances that bear chemical makeups substantially similar to those of old favorites like meth, cocaine and LSD — have sidestepped prosecution by selling drugs whose molecular construction has been tweaked enough to create something technically new. But thanks to legislation passed in the past two years in which more analogs have been added, state and federal law enforcement agencies have been better equipped to tackle dealers like Carlton. In theory, anyway.

This far-flung conspiracy case will be one of the first to test the application of the Federal Analog Act to substances like 25-I, which was not a scheduled drug (i.e., one regulated by the federal government) at the time Carlton sold it but might be considered an analog to something called 2C-I, which has been listed as a controlled substance since 1995. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 2C-I "can be treated on a case-by-case basis as if it were a schedule I controlled substance, if it is distributed with the intention for human consumption."

However, this was not a DEA case. It belonged to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — specifically, Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The division's agents look into everything from human rights violations to arms and narcotics trafficking. Part of the division's mission, according to its Web site, is to investigate "terrorist and other criminal organizations" and combat "worldwide criminal enterprises who seek to exploit America's legitimate trade, travel and financial systems."

Carlton was now in the big leagues. In the eyes of the federal government, he wasn't just selling molecularly jerry-rigged meth to a bunch of idiots. He was a threat to national security.
_____________________

According to discussions on some online forums, Carlton's company, Motion Research, was one of the more reputable vendors of drugs euphemistically referred to by users as research chemicals.

They are so called because they were originally created in labs by legitimate scientists and tested for medicinal purposes. So there's a body of literature for what Kay McClain of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences calls "rogue chemists" to play with. McClain, a forensic chemist, was part of the institute's team of experts who helped draw up Texas's legislation against such chemicals. The idea behind the Texas law was to craft something broad enough to address the whole glut of research chemicals, in contrast to the federal approach of listing each individual drug as it popped up.

"They can sell these things on the Internet...as something besides a drug," McClain says. "They'll say that it's an ant killer; they'll say that it's something to clean with...and they're selling it that way, so they're getting around the law that way."

She adds, "We're all sitting around the whole country waiting to see how they try a case and how they go after it, because a lot of the prosecutors...this is new to everyone. It's new to the prosecutors, it's new to the laboratory personnel that are testing these drugs. Even as we speak, they're re-looking at the Texas laws, because they're having issues knowing how to try these types of cases."

They're a chatty bunch, these amateur researchers. Although they of course don't use their real names online, most of them feel compelled to employ the term "research chemicals" or similarly benign labels like "plant fertilizer," and some will describe the drugs' potency in terms of how their "plants" have reacted. Some commenters will say they look forward to "conducting research." They're like high-schoolers who've created a decidedly unclever code for weed, one that apparently gives them no end of pleasure.


In some online forums, the users seem to consider themselves members of an exclusive club, and they love chatting about the chemical components of the crap they consume, about how stupid the media is for always misreporting something that some kid OD'd on as 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine when it was actually N-(2-methoxybenzyl)-4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine. Their superior grasp of chemistry allows many of them to know for certain that it's never the substance alone that kills people, it's that some greenhorn hasn't done his homework, which in turn fuels a media frenzy and hollow political outrage. The story you are reading will no doubt be parsed to shreds on these forums faster than you can say "4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethytriptamine."

However, they're often right, and the Carlton prosecution is a good example: It appears that none of the regular commenters on the forums reviewed by the Houston Press would snort a bag of mystery powder or knowingly mix 25-I into chocolate and chomp it like a Snickers. There are a lot of consumers, but not so many reported deaths.

Even more confusing, some of the substances Carlton is charged with selling were legal in many states at the time — as long as they were not used for human consumption or sold with the knowledge that buyers were using them to get high.

The wiggle room granted by this disclaimer, and the fact that a lot of substances hadn't yet been added to the list of controlled substances, appear to have led Carlton and his business partner, Harry "Scootdog" Mickelis, to launch Motion Research as a legitimate company. They filed articles of incorporation with the Texas Secretary of State in late 2010, moved into an office building and set up shop. Adding to this patina of legitimacy, Motion Research's drugs were sold with material safety data sheets explicitly stating that the products were "not for human use," and customers were required to fill out a registration form explaining their purchases' intended use. The site's terms-and-conditions page stated, "By purchasing any material from Motion Research Co you acknowledge that you work for or own a research company, are a legitimate researcher with a proper laboratory facility and are skilled in the art of handling hazardous materials."

Prior to launching Motion Research, Carlton worked at a company that repaired X-ray machines and was on probation. He had received deferred adjudication after pleading guilty to a charge of attempted deadly conduct. Court records show that he pulled a knife on a 21-year-old man in 2009 but did not actually stab him. Although the details aren't included in the court records, the would-be victim in the case told the Press that the incident occurred at a McDonald's; Carlton, appearing out of sorts, was a customer who reportedly got into an argument with the manager; when the man intervened, Carlton brandished a knife. Ultimately, Carlton was released from probation two years early, and, per the terms of his deferred adjudication, the charge was dismissed.

Carlton's business partner, 39-year-old Mickelis — who preferred to be called by his middle name, George — was a man with no obvious source of income. He had four minor drug-possession charges on his record, two of which were dismissed and two of which resulted respectively in probation and a 40-day stint in Harris County Jail. In a 2007 charge for his second DWI, his employment was listed as part-time jobs at a courier service and an IT-consulting firm.

Although Mickelis co-founded the company that prosecutors say sold deadly drugs to teenagers, his name doesn't appear in court records for this case. That's because, it seems, he cooperated with federal agents.

While his business partner and IT guy waited to post bond in jail, Mickelis put pictures on Facebook of himself and his buddies enjoying themselves at a casino. Sources say he nearly cleaned out the company's bank account before calling his lawyer and cooperating with federal agents, who should have been able to make a slam-dunk case without such assistance in the first place.

Mickelis seems to illustrate a very important lesson in the war against analog drugs: If you drop a dime on your fellow drug dealers — after you've made a handsome profit — you are no longer considered a threat to national security.
the rest at: http://www.houstonpress.com/2013-03-14/news/motion-research-charles-carlton/#livefyre

-This article is about 6 pages long and worth a readthrough.
 
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so 25-I is being considered an analogue of 2C-I huh. Kind of stretches the meaning of "substantially similar"
 
The name of this NOW DEFUNCT vendor might be familiar to some people. The article discusses all of the events leading up to the raid and talks about how there was an informant along with somebody that went down with them that was just an IT guy. Also has a guy at the end of the article who discusses harm reduction and his HR site so that's pretty cool.
 
Is posting the name of a new defunct vendor considered sourcing?

nope, we discussed that issue in the past. The vendor's site has been defunct since October 2012, as per the articles sources.

There would be no way to source drugs with the information provided AFAIK.
 
There would be no way to source drugs with the information provided AFAIK.

Sure there is: time travel.

With a really powerful connection, you can access the 2013 internet as far back as July of 1985.

Having items shipped to July of 1985 is still problematic.
 
yeah, i actually have a copy of this was reading it at work yesterday. houston press is usually good with the facts.
 
In some online forums, the users seem to consider themselves members of an exclusive club, and they love chatting about the chemical components of the crap they consume, about how stupid the media is for always misreporting something that some kid OD'd on as 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine when it was actually N-(2-methoxybenzyl)-4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine. Their superior grasp of chemistry allows many of them to know for certain that it's never the substance alone that kills people, it's that some greenhorn hasn't done his homework, which in turn fuels a media frenzy and hollow political outrage. The story you are reading will no doubt be parsed to shreds on these forums faster than you can say "4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethytriptamine."

Grrr....

However, they're often right, and the Carlton prosecution is a good example: It appears that none of the regular commenters on the forums reviewed by the Houston Press would snort a bag of mystery powder or knowingly mix 25-I into chocolate and chomp it like a Snickers. There are a lot of consumers, but not so many reported deaths.

Hm.
 
^that quote made me laugh, especially:

They love chatting about the chemical components of the crap they consume, about how stupid the media is for always misreporting something that some kid OD'd on as 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine when it was actually N-(2-methoxybenzyl)-4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine.
 
This as stuff is EVERYWHERE around my parts, South Dakota, I'm surprised no one has died from here yet. I'm just glad I know someone who knows what their doing when doses out the drug.
 
Budge didn't know what the powder was; it was something that had caught his eye after he broke into his weed dealer's apartment and found a box containing a few sweetener-sized packets of the stuff. It would cost Budge his freedom and Stai his life.

That is straight up karma for breaking into his weed dealer's apartment. Plus it's like, if you found a bottle of unlabeled liquid under a sink, would you drink it hoping it to be liquor and not drain cleaner? 8( Same goes for powders that you didn't obtain yourself, labeled or otherwise.
 
That is straight up karma for breaking into his weed dealer's apartment. Plus it's like, if you found a bottle of unlabeled liquid under a sink, would you drink it hoping it to be liquor and not drain cleaner? 8( Same goes for powders that you didn't obtain yourself, labeled or otherwise.

Yeah, these dumbasses opened up a can of worms when they did that. Idiots like this are in part as to why the scene collapsed. Everything is straight until little Johnny fucked-in-the-head breaks into a DRUG DEALER'S house and steals RANDOM POWDERS to do whatever with. The biggest tool to properly use these compounds is knowledge. I've used many, many research chemicals many, many times and never once made myself sick-because I knew my limits and I knew what I was working with and made proper choices on what RC's I wanted to use and what RC's I didn't want to use.

I, however, no longer use research chemicals and haven't in about a year because my state passed a blanket ban combined with the fact that I trip much less often now.
 
In June 2012, Elijah Stai and his friend Adam Budge were in Budge's home in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, mixing a white powder called 25-I-NBOME into chocolate, having no idea what the hell they were doing. Budge didn't know what the powder was; it was something that had caught his eye after he broke into his weed dealer's apartment and found a box containing a few sweetener-sized packets of the stuff

Da fuck? Thats some of the dumbest shit I have ever heard of.
 
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