There is a disturbing account of a death of a young man who participated in the annual Halloween celebrations in New Orleans. Clayton Otwell, 21, went to New Orleans with a friend to go to the Voodoo Festival in the City Park. After helping a stranger, he was offered the chance to try a new type of drug called 25-I. It took just one drop up the nose to kill him. The drug is called “N-Bomb” for its chemical composition 25I-NBOMe and is an extremely potent synthetic substance analogous to LSD.
Otwell was drinking vodka-loaded Red Bulls at the festival with his friend, Mandie Newell. They had a rule never to try drugs offered by strangers. However, after Otwell found a cellphone of a stranger, the stranger offered to let him try a new synthetic hallucinogenic drug called 25-I. Apparently, you take the drug through the nose. However, once given a single drop from a vial, Otwell began babbling incoherently. His friend took him to the medical tent but within 30 minutes, Otwell had a seizure and never regained consciousness. He died days later on life support.
His friend said that she did not know why he took the drug but is quoted as saying “I guess the drinking impaired his judgment on whether or not he should take it.” Two other people were treated for 25-I overdoses that weekend. Witnesses say that dealers at Voodoo Fest were offering people doses of 25-I all weekend.
25I-NBOMe (2C-I-NBOMe) is a derivative of the phenethylamine psychedelic 2C-I developed in 2003 by Ralf Heim at the Free University of Berlin.
This research drug is killing people around the country. Two teenagers in Grand Forks, N.D. and a 16-year-old boy in Sacramento, Calif., are among the dead. There were seven non-fatal overdoses with the drug reported near Richmond, Virginia.
Source: NOLA
Scary, sad, story. So much suffering. Thanks for telling us about this new threat to look out for.
This is a nightmare for his family no doubt, but it was undoubtedly a call they had feared for many years. Clayton was a good man, he was also a flawed person just like each and every one of us. His weaknesses consumed him too early in his life, but the audacity of those who think they are immune from the consequences of human frailty may be humbled when the truth of their own imperfections confront them.There is a prevent western religion which purports to admonish its followers to never judge and forgive infinitely. God knows that nonsense has nothing to do with Christianity.
What bothers me most about this sad story is that it was a homicide, but strangely it isn’t reported as such. Although Clayton agreed to take the drug, he did not administer it to himself. By way of analogy, if a man asked someone to shoot him in the head, then in compliance with that request the accomplice complied, then shot the victim in his brain, would the criminal implications be in doubt? How is this different?
The extremely rapid death also makes me question the nature of the chemical administered. But that question is up to the medical examiners.
This drug has strong recreational appeal, but like similar drugs is made particularly dangerous by government policy that forbids open production without FDA approval. This means that manufacturing and distribution are driven underground into criminal channels, with the consumer left to guess at quality, purity, strength, interactions and safe dosing.
The fact that even well tolerated and studied soft drugs like MDMA and marijuana are still specifically outlawed (25I-NBOMe is not scheduled, except in Virginia), drives users into these expensive, risky alternatives.
It is my hope that voters in Colorado, Washington and Oregon pass drug legalization initiatives tomorrow in the same way that the states first abandoned federal Prohibition in the 1920’s. If these initiatives pass one possible outcome is that the federal government would radically expand DEA policing in these states, although without local police cooperation and referrals enforcement for smaller drug crimes would always be very challenging. I think it more likely that over time the federal government will ultimately choose regulation and taxation of these products.
This drug class has strong recreational appeal, but like similar drugs is made particularly dangerous by government policy that forbids open production without FDA approval. This means that manufacturing and distribution are driven underground into criminal channels, with the consumer left to guess at quality, purity, strength, interactions and safe dosing.
The fact that even well tolerated and studied soft drugs like MDMA and marijuana are still specifically outlawed (25I-NBOMe is not scheduled, except in Virginia), drives users into these expensive, risky alternatives.
It is my hope that voters in Colorado, Washington and Oregon pass drug legalization initiatives tomorrow in the same way that the states first abandoned federal Prohibition in the 1920’s. If these initiatives pass one possible outcome is that the federal government would radically expand DEA policing in these states, although without local police cooperation and referrals enforcement for smaller drug crimes would always be very challenging. I think it more likely that over time the federal government will ultimately choose regulation and taxation of these products.
Thanks….
Amen to all that, bettykath person.
bill mcw, Yes, we have many wars going on right now. If you’re referring specifically to the war on drugs, it’s the longest next to the Korean “war”. Prohibition led to the creation of organized crime. The war on drugs has led to organized and brutal drug cartels. It’s time to end the wars – all of them.
This anecdote certainly convinces me, as I’m sure it does many others, of the need to increase the budget of local and federal drug warriors, and as well, to ignore whiny ACLU types that complain about framing people, entrapping people, no-knock laws, and all the rest. After all, there’s a war going on.
Life is enough of an elixir. Period.
AY…I’d also like to echo the sentiments of others to you and OS. I cannot imagine.
Nick…I live in an Upper-Midwestern town, the use of ‘drugs’ is stigmatized heavily, while at the same time our town is a purported craft-brewery lover’s haven. Now, I love me a good micro-brew, but its funny how one substance can be a tourist attraction while another is the root of evil…even funnier when the evidence suggests we’ve screwed up which one is good and which one is bad. Needless to say, we have no dispensaries.
I’m hoping the 3 state legalization initiatives pass and we continue to move forward with pragmatic solutions…this can only lead to the doors of research opening up to help us achieve the full potential of natural substances. And tying back to the original story, we’d be a lot less likely to have to hear about overdoses of synthetic toxins hiding as drugs.
Betty Kath. The Citizens (sic) Commission on Human Rights is a radical hate group bent on the “global destruction of psychiatry”. They’re known for their grossly perverted propaganda such as the idea that Psychiatrists were behind the WWII holocaust rather than the Nazis.
While I can sympathise with some of the basic issues the CCHR raise, over prescribing of medication being one, the CHHR are to “Big Pharma” watchdog groups what Al-Qeada is to Islam, an over zealous bunch with extremist radical ideas who use dirty tricks and misrepresentations of the truth.
In short the CCHR are nothing but trouble. They also steal other people’s results claiming them as their own. And they’re also run by that other radical hate group the church of scientology; note that the issues surrounding the church of scientology organisation have nothing to do with the belief system called scientology. Like all dangerous and corrupt organisations the beliefs are simply a nucleous around which the organisation formed. There is a growing number of Independent Scientologists who all say the church of scientology is corrupt, dangerous and that it destroys families and peoples lives.
OS, Well said and obviously from the heart..albeit broken. I never pray for the dead, believing they are @ peace. I pray for you, AY, and all parents who have had a child die. I saw my best friends got through that, their child battled brain cancer and died @ age 4. It led to their divorce, which is all too common. Stay well and strong.
AY,
I echo the sentiments of nick, raff and others. There is nothing worse than burying your child. I know. Last August, it was five years for me. I wrote this as a way of venting. I had to find some way to let out some of the pain. So, I do know. We are members of a brotherhood no one ever wants to join. Ever.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/08/07/561003/-In-Memoriam-One-year-ago-today?detail=hide
AY, My heart goes out to you and all parents who have had a child die. There is NOTHING worse.
JC, I applaud you for taking responsibility for you own health. Cary Grant used hallucinogens for depression I believe.The VA has approved cannabis for vets residing in states that have medical cannabis laws. So..the VA approves it and Eric Holder is closing down legal dispensaries. I spend winters in San Diego and it’s been a state of siege the past 18 months. There were ~50 dispensaries in 2010, last I heard there are 4. The mobile dispensaries w/o a brick/mortar seem to be doing better escaping the gestapo. Ah…the government!
AY,
I am sorry for your loss and I hope the anniversary passes without too much additional pain. It is not something that you ever get over entirely.