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Breaking The Law One Atom At A Time
Sellers of so-called "legal highs" can create and market new drugs so quickly that it will become difficult for authorities to keep on top of the problem, a drug conference has heard.
Just changing one carbon of a chemical compound can mean a new drug is developed, and using the internet backyard-developers can find these drug structures through old academic research papers and patent applications, according to Peter Vallely, a special investigator from the Australian Crime Commission.
Mr Vallely said there was broad confusion in the community about whether these new drugs were actually legal and people could order them online not realising they were breaking the law.
"There are a number of people who have found themselves in circumstances where they have actually purchased a controlled substance and they are absolutely mortified," he said.
Many new specific drug compounds were banned and there was also a clause in federal law outlawing drugs that were "substantially similar" to existing compounds.
Mr Vallely believed only "the very tip" of an explosion in new drugs had been seen.
In the case of "synthetic marijuana" the basic chemicals needed to create the drug, which was then dissolved and sprayed onto herbs, could cost $10,000 for one kilogram. The drugs could then be sold for $2.4 million.
"That sort of money is not going to remain unnoticed by serious criminal organisations," he told the University of NSW 2011 National Drug Trends Conference.
Simply testing all the new compounds would significantly stretch the capabilities of forensic labs, he said.
He argued in the future the onus might have to be reversed so makers and suppliers would be forced to prove the substance was safe rather than authorities proving it was unsafe.
Adam Winstock, a consultant addiction specialist at the South London and Maudsley National Health Service Trust in London, told the conference that the European Union had gone from releasing about two notifications each year about new drugs, to about 80 in the past two years.
He said new drugs such as mephedrone, or "meow meow", became successful far more quickly than authorities could ban them.
He believed governments should look at regulating rather than banning the drugs.
In the UK, new drugs seemed to get a quicker uptake than in countries like Australia, although it was not clear why, he said.
A senior researcher at the Queensland Alcohol & Drug Research and Education Centre, Fairlie Mcllwraith, said her research into the internet habits of ecstasy users indicated that about 10 per cent had used the internet to buy drugs and 2 per cent to buy the ingredients for drugs.
About 5 per cent had sold drugs online.
But about 60 per cent of users employed the internet to research information about different drugs, she said.
The most common website used was a ''pill reports'' website in which users and drug sellers posted reviews of ecstasy tablets.
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