Letter to DEA Administrator Rosenberg - Shut Down Synthetic Drug Websites

Letter

Dear Administrator Rosenberg:

I write to once again shed light on an issue that is harming communities in New York and across the country. Synthetic drugs, extremely dangerous chemical compounds with harmful effects, have become increasingly accessible. Today, they are easily purchased online and in convenience stores. Working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2012, Congress used its legislative authority to place over 20 chemical compounds that had been used in synthetic marijuana and other synthetic drugs into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 811, the Attorney General has the authority (which has been delegated to the DEA Administrator) to temporarily place an uncontrolled substance into Schedule I if it is deemed to present an imminent hazard to public safety. Congress also expanded this emergency scheduling authority to more quickly ban new combinations that may be used to similar effect. Despite the DEA's constant efforts to emergency schedule controlled substance analogues, these drugs continue to be marketed and accessible to young people.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York, in a recent two-month period, the use of synthetic marijuana resulted in 2,300 emergency room visits in New York State alone. Across the nation, synthetic marijuana-related phone calls made to poison centers in the first four months of this year increased by 229% compared to the same period last year, and synthetic drug-related emergency room visits in New York State have increased tenfold. Law enforcement officials in NY and across the nation agree this has become a public health crisis near epidemic proportions.

The high demand for synthetic substances such as "Spice" or "K2" coupled with the proliferation of chemical compounds available online, has increased the need for the government to swiftly implement measures to identify websites that offer these dangerous products and coordinate with payment processing companies to thwart these vendors' ability to sell synthetic drugs online. Earlier this week, your agents dismantled a large international ring responsible for manufacturing synthetic marijuana with more than 200 kilograms of chemicals imported from China and purportedly purchased online. These ring leaders then packaged and distributed the drug to dozens of NYC bodegas. NYC law enforcement seized more than 275,000 packets of the finished product. To date, more than 90 bodegas were found to openly sell or market the illicit substance.

While recent law enforcement actions will significantly impact the sale of these dangerous substances in stores, the drugs are still readily available online for wholesale and retail.

This is why I ask that the DEA create a special investigative unit tasked with identifying and shutting down online retailers of synthetic drugs. In this new modern marketplace, it is critical for experts from the DEA to sweep the web seeking out and investigating online purveyors of illegal synthetic drugs and then coordinate with payment processors to ensure that sales on these websites are shut down. It is particularly important to stop the flow of money to these drug traffickers, therefore I encourage you to create open lines of communication with the credit card companies and other payment processers, such as PayPal, to ensure that these companies are aware of the websites engaged in the sale of illegal synthetic drugs that offer the ability to process payments over their network and are provided with critical information to be able to block online sales on those sites. I also urge you to provide more information to the public about these illegal drugs sold under child-friendly brand names such as "scooby snax" by publishing information on known synthetic drug brands and packaging found to contain illegal substances on the web.

The federal government must do all it can to keep these harmful compounds off the streets and out of the hands of our citizens. Thank you for your resolve to combating this issue and I look forward to hearing from you.

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