Indiana is again tackling the problem of synthetic drugs.
Although the state has a law against the manufacturing, selling and consumption of those drugs, producers have found a way to skirt the law.
Legislators are hoping their new bills, one of which likely will be passed, will make it impossible for that to happen again.
House Bill 1196 has passed the House and is being considered by the Senate.
“I expect it to pass the Senate, because senators passed their own bill similar to this one,” said State Rep. Steve Davisson, R-Salem, co-author of the House bill. Senate Bill 234 is being reviewed by the House Courts and Criminal Code Committee; Davisson is co-sponsor of that bill.
Only one of the bills needs to be passed by both chambers and signed by the governor to become law.
Davisson, who represented the northeast corner of Dubois County before Jan. 1, said that some synthetic drugs are just as dangerous as the typical illegal substances.
“There are 16 different chemical variations of spice that’s out there,” he said, “and supposedly they’re more potent than real marijuana.”
Last year, the Legislature passed a law banning spice and K-2, two popular synthetic drugs, and their known formulas.
“It was a very specific bill that banned very specific compounds,” Davisson said. “But in the past six months or so, the manufacturers of those products changed a chemical or two and put them back on the street. Since (the altered products) are not specifically listed in the bill, prosecutors can’t bring charges up for them.”
Fred Huttsell, a chemist from the Indiana State Police laboratory, testified to House and Senate committees that after the new law went into effect last year, synthetic drug manufacturers started changing their formulas slightly to get around the law.
About 60 percent of the synthetic drugs identified by the lab as synthetic have materials in them that do not fall under the current law, he said.
“They are sold over the Internet as bath salts, as bonsai fertilizer, and they’re listed as not for human consumption,” Huttsell said. “But from what we get sent into the lab, they’re being sold and possessed for human consumption.”
The new bills propose that the base group of chemicals contained in the drugs be deemed illegal. The bills also give the Indiana Board of Pharmacy the power to enact an emergency rule and deem any new formulas found to be illegal.
“If something comes out as being abused on the street, the pharmacy board has the power to declare that as illegal under an emergency rule,” Davisson said.
He is confident that one of the new bills will pass because ht thinks it’s needed for public safety.
“It’s probably not going to solve the problem entirely. But it will keep it out of the hands of our children, and from adults. People are having permanent damage from these drugs. We need to get rid of them any way we can.”
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