We are having problems in our county with synthetic drugs, mostly what I guess is commonly called synthetic marijuana. Several convenience stores here sell it, and often high school kids are their customers. An 18-year-old died last weekend and authorities suspect this garbage contributed to - or even caused - his death.

We'd like to get these sellers' attention. I had a thought. Marijuana is Schedule 1. One could argue that this synthetic stuff was designed to produce an effect substantially similar to, or greater than the effect of marijuana. If that's true, the synthetic could be characterized as a controlled substance analogue under CSA 481.002 (6).

Under Subchapter E, Forfeiture, 481.151 defines "controlled substance property" as including controlled substance analogues. 481.153 states that controlled substance property that is manufactured, delivered or possessed in violation of this chapter is subject to seizure and summary forfeiture to the state.

What we'd like to do is initiate a mass seizure -- on a designated day police would visit all these convenience stores and seize their synthetics. And if they obtain more, we'll seize that too. All of it would be summarily destroyed under 481.153 (b). We could do a press conference and tell sellers "If you try to sell this stuff, it will be confiscated."

What do you think of this idea? Does my reliance on these provisions of the CSA make sense? Am I stretching things too far? Any advice or info you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

We got reports of synthetic drugs being sold in a local store in my jurisdiction. One of our undercover narcotics officers did several buys to see how the store handled transactions and where it placed the monies from the sale of the drugs.

He then sent the suspected contraband to lab to be tested, and it came back containing a schedule 2A controlled substance. Now he had a manufacture/delivery of controlled substance case.

He did another undercover buy with officers in place and raided the store. Charged the owners with manufacture/delivery of controlled substance over 400 grams and seized over 50k in cash out of the store. The store was commingling the proceeds from sales of the drug with all legitimate funds.

As you can imagine there was a lot of flushing going on at other convenient stores around our county.

The sheriff in our county handled it well and it seems to be working. If you have any questions about what they did, call Chief Deputy Stephen Godfrey at the Nacogdoches County Sheriff's Office.