Seizure of drug extracted from cactus baffles Punjab cops
Seizure of drug extracted from cactus baffles Punjab cops
Ever heard of a cactus growing in the desert being turned into a recreational drug called mescaline! This intoxicating chemical has quietly entered the drug trafficking chain of Punjab in the form of a powder, leaving even the hard-nosed cops baffled after its first ever chance
recovery.
Punjab Police sources say 10.5 kg of this powder seized from a woman by the Patiala police on Tuesday, which was initially said to be "smack", has turned out to be mescaline, about which the cops actively involved in breaking drug rackets in this border state are unaware.
The arrest of the accused, Simranjit Kaur, and her interrogation has thrown new leads to the investigators about the supply of mescaline, which the police claimed to have seized from the woman's house in Patran. The woman's brother and nephew are in jail already under the NDPS Act. After registering a case under the NDPS Act against Simranjit, the police are tracking her suppliers and clients.
During the interrogation, police sources say, the woman revealed that she used to mix a small quantity of smack in mescaline and sell the drug to her clients as "smack". The mescaline, the woman told the police, was being supplied from neighbouring Rajasthan. The police sent the sample of the seized drug to a laboratory on Wednesday, which too confirmed that the powder was mescaline.
"It was a peculiar revelation. It is for the first time in Punjab that this drug has been seized. We were totally unaware of it," a senior police officer said. "We are investigating if this recreational drug was actually coming from Rajasthan or elsewhere," a police source said.
It has emerged that the handlers of this drug-peddling woman were giving her lucrative commission to sell mescaline laced with "smack".
"So far we don't know exactly where this drug was coming from. We knew nothing about mescaline until Tuesday. It's a new and equally worrying trend," a cop involved in the investigation said.
The police probe indicated that the Goa Police had confiscated mescaline in two-three cases long ago.
As per the information available about this drug on the Internet, mescaline is extracted from a small-sized cactus. As per the website drugs.com, this drug has been used by natives in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States as part of traditional religious rites since earliest recorded times.
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