US- 22 People indicted for selling RC's as molly in Syracuse, NY and elsewhere

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deekan

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http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/post_466.html

Although based in the Syracuse area, it involved co-conspirators in Florida, California, Texas, Virginia and elsewhere, federal prosecutors said. They are accused of conspiring to distribute “Molly,” known by its chemical name as 4-Methylmethcathinone (4-MMC) and 4-Methyl-N-Ethylcathinone (4-MEC), prosecutors said. The drugs are similar to Ecstasy, also known as methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, and are often sold as a “pure” form of Ecstasy to users.
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They are being charged using the federal analog act, and mephedrone was recently banned in NY state so there will probably be additional state charges
 
Hopefully a good lawyer will manage to get them off.

I hope the case fails because this will bolster the analog act's teeth if it succeeds.

I hated 4-MMC after trying it, but I certainly would not want to deny another person's freedom of choice to ingest it. It's their body and their choice as an adult in a supposedly free society.

EDIT: My bad, I thought for some reason they were selling them as pills but now realize the article doesn't say anything about pills. I had made a snap judgement based on the reference to Molly. I retract my previous comment regarding the accused's misrepresentation of something that isnt MDMA as "Molly" "Ecstasy" etc that is now edited out. Suffice to say in my book anyone that misrepresents drugs and rips people off especially when it can place their life in danger has got it coming to them, though the prison-industrial complex thugs are far worse on the "evil' scale. It's one thing to "cut" a substance with inert fillers but another thing entirely to combine two potent NDRIs / SNDRIs and misrepresent them as MDMA.
 
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The reference to 'molly' is certainly misleading, I wonder if they did that to make people think that it is indeed an analog of mdma. No one thinks 4-mmc/mec is 'molly' imo tho lol, and they consider ecstacy to be mdma, when really ecstacy is a pill with random contents, possibly with some mdma. I read the comments section of the article and it's shocking how ignorant the majority of people are. Most of them adopted 'molly' as the new name for some sort of drano like chemical from China, doesn't make any sense.

It's weird how the DEA decided to follow them for the last 2 years, were they just waiting for mephedrone to get banned? Seems like a lot of effort to put into something that was not even explicitly illegal at the time. I wonder how many other people they have been monitoring, the RC scene is very open, any one with a bit of knowledge can find any chem and thus a supplier so I'm sure the DEA can. Maybe they were waiting for the right time to apply the analog act successfully (had to somehow prove that the chemicals were for human consumption)? I'm really interested in all of this and what it means for the future of the 'bath salts' industry and possibly the RC industry as well.
 
Syracuse University:

Molly is currently legal under federal law, and New York state has not banned the drug. However, if Molly is tested and classified as an imitation controlled substance, the person in possession of it can be charged.
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I thought Molly was MDMA.
 
The federal charges are flawed. For someone to be prosecuted under the analog act, that person has to have the intention of using it as an analog. 4-MMC is an analog of methcathinone and 4-MEC is an analog of ethcathinone. Neither of them are analogs of MDMA (they are not substantially similar to MDMA).

The correct charge here is imitation controlled substance, not analog.
 
235360287471352662 said:
The federal charges are flawed. For someone to be prosecuted under the analog act, that person has to have the intention of using it as an analog. 4-MMC is an analog of methcathinone and 4-MEC is an analog of ethcathinone. Neither of them are analogs of MDMA (they are not substantially similar to MDMA).

The correct charge here is imitation controlled substance, not analog.
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like you said, 4-MMC is an analog of methcathinone and methcathinone is a schedule 1 drug. analog act certainly applies. I don't know the details of the case, but if they were selling it as "molly (mdma)" that pretty much proves intention of consumption.

It bothers me that is appears they were slanging 4-MMC as molly. It doesn't surprise me though because I've personally seen methylone sold as molly at a rave..
 
villian said:
like you said, 4-MMC is an analog of methcathinone and methcathinone is a schedule 1 drug. analog act certainly applies. I don't know the details of the case, but if they were selling it as "molly (mdma)" that pretty much proves intention of consumption.
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Analog act specifies that the seller has to intend it to be similar to the scheduled drug. The scheduled drug in this case is methcathinone (and ethcathinone), but the seller intended it to be similar to MDMA. Analog act does not apply.

21 U.S.C. § 802(32)
(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (C), the term controlled substance analogue means a substance -
(i) the chemical structure of which is substantially similar to the chemical structure of a controlled substance in schedule I or II;
(ii) which has a stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system that is substantially similar to or greater than the stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system of a controlled substance in schedule I or II; or
(iii) with respect to a particular person, which such person represents or intends to have a stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system that is substantially similar to or greater than the stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system of a controlled substance in schedule I or II.
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There is room for an interpretation that it can be similar to one controlled substance and be intended to be an analog of another controlled substance, but that is clearly not the purpose of the Act. There must be chemical and pharmacological similarity to the same substance.
 
So mcats called molly in america eh? hopefully that doesn't become the new word for it. be a nightmare trying to find good E!
 
Analog act specifies that the seller has to intend it to be similar to the scheduled drug. The scheduled drug in this case is methcathinone (and ethcathinone), but the seller intended it to be similar to MDMA. Analog act does not apply.
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What difference does it make which Schedule 1 substance 4-MMC is an analog of?


(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (C), the term controlled substance analogue means a substance -
(i) the chemical structure of which is substantially similar to the chemical structure of a controlled substance in schedule I or II;

"Substantially similar" is tricky language, but I think the government could argue 4-MMC is substantially similar to methcathinone.

(ii) which has a stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system that is substantially similar to or greater than the stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system of a controlled substance in schedule I or II; or

4-MMC has a similar/greater than stimulant effect on the CNS compared to methcathinone, a Schedule 1 drug

(iii) with respect to a particular person, which such person represents or intends to have a stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system that is substantially similar to or greater than the stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic effect on the central nervous system of a controlled substance in schedule I or II.

Since this person was selling it as a drug rather than "NFHC" bath salts we meet this criteria as well.


The analog act is open to interpretation and has even been challenged in court for being unconstitutionally vague. However I don't follow your thinking that because he was selling a methcathinone analog as Ecstasy that the analog act does not apply in this case. The act never specifies a certain drug, it includes all Schedule 1 and 2 drugs.
 
^actually the argument is moot. The newspaper juxtaposed two quotes and altered their meaning. Here's the DEA's statement:

All of these individuals have been indicted by a federal grand jury with, among other charges, conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute and distributing 4-Methylmethcathinone (4-MMC) and 4-Methyl-N-Ethylcathinone (4-MEC), often referred to as “Molly.” 4-MMC and 4-MEC are controlled substance analogues of methcathinone, a Schedule I controlled substance.
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Newbierock said:
So mcats called molly in america eh? hopefully that doesn't become the new word for it. be a nightmare trying to find good E!
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It isn't, they were just selling it as molly. If they said 4-MMC or 4-MEC for sale!, people would more than likely get confused. The masses aren't very smart when it comes to drugs and so these guys took advantage of this.
 
Confusing. This was not Molly at all but rather a widely available legal knockoff.
The government obviously did not do their homework before making arrests.
All research validates this chemicals legality at the time.
What a waste of taxpayer's money.
Laws did not restrict chemical until just recently.
 
For something now stated as "illegal" but is still very much accessible in local places and or head shops, and from what i have read one of the very
first cases in Ny state. With the "vagueness" and holes in that case, the government trying to make its mark specifically the DA
 
I'm pretty sure the dea did their homework. The bottom line is that no matter what they were sold as MMC and MEC are analogs.
I really don't think this "not for human consumption" business really protects anyone.
 
I understand what you're trying to say but I know
that this particular case has more twists to it than
meets the eye. Hope it all works out for them in
the end. It's a pretty grey area.
 
i think the grey area of "what they sold" at the time that whoever sold it it was not even on any schedule list or illegal at the time of the arrests because of its distribution in local business's and even if it had been to understand the legalities of the consumer act, and their individual rights knowing what they were buying and thinking it was legal and in actuality it was, doesn't seem solid enough to to convict certain individuals in this case on conspiracy i would think their attorneys will find holes in this particular case
 
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