Every now and then, new drugs hit the market before we have the chance to research and evaluate their safety. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has taken action against other questionable drugs known as K-2 and Spice, which mimic the effects of marijuana and have, therefore, been dubbed as fake pot. Since these drugs are relatively new, long-term side effects have not been well-documented. Therefore, these drugs were prohibited by the DEA until further investigation. The problem is, as soon as one drug is taken off the market, another one sprouts up in its place. The latest designer drug that is drawing attention is 2C-E. It is a man-made hallucinogen that produces effects similar to Ecstasy or LSD. It is one molecule different from its illegal cousin, 2C-B. Because 2C-E is composed of some controlled substances and some which are not, at the present time, it is perfectly legal.
Since young ones get easily hooked to such substances, they are highly like to develop substance use disorder in a quick span of time. Therefore, it is advisable that parents should be on their toes and take their young ones for substance use disorder evaluation on a regular basis.
2C-E has recently been implicated in the death of one 19-year-old male, Trevor Robinson, as well as the hospitalization of 10 others. All eleven Minnesota youngsters aged 16 to 21 overdosed on the drug and were rushed to the hospital. The group was partying, celebrating spring break when their merriment turned deadly. Trevor was placed on life support, but unfortunately, didn’t make it. The group admitted to purchasing the drug legally online.
The danger with these new drug trends is multi-faceted. First, because drugs such as these are so new, it is not known how they will react with other medications such as Ritalin that a teen might be taking for ADD. Second, their effects are not felt immediately, which may cause the person taking them to ingest excessive amounts, thinking they are not getting high enough, fast enough. This increases the risk of overdose because by the time they feel high, these kids have already consumed too much of the drug, and this is what happened in Minnesota.
People have the misconception that just because something is legal, it must be safe. This is clearly not the case. Also, obtaining the drug online is quite dangerous as doses and purity levels could be quite dubious. Another problem is that 2C-E can stay in the system for up to 12 hours, so partying youth might feel like they are no longer impacted by the drug and decide to start drinking alcohol before the drug is fully out of their body. The effects when mixed with alcohol are unknown.
2C-E is a sort of drug that was present at raves over a decade ago. The way to attack this trend is not to keep fighting the insurgence of new drugs. We have to change the attitudes and belief systems that today’s youth hold toward drug use. We may need to bring back the War on Drugs campaign from the 80s and let teens know the true dangers of such substances so that they can be mentally equipped to “Just Say No.”