Fake amphetamines are not only lethal but legal—for now
The 17-year-old girl in Belvidere, Ill., seemed to be just one more victim of an overdose of illegally obtained amphetamines. Police, finding the type of pills that allegedly killed her, thought they looked just like “black beauties,” one of several forms in which amphetamines are sold. Analysis showed, however, that they were not amphetamines at all but a combination of substances commonly found in the cold remedies, diet and keep-awake pills sold over the counter in drugstores. The dead girl was a victim of the nation’s latest drug danger: the “lookalike” pill.
Though they are made to mimic the appearance of the more expensive amphetamines, look-alike drugs contain no federally controlled substances (i.e., with a high potential of dangerous abuse). Their primary ingredients are caffeine, a stimulant; ephedrine, a vascular constrictor; and phenylpropanolamine (PPA), a chemical cousin of amphetamines. The danger lies not in the kinds of chemicals they contain but in the amount. Whereas the average diet-aid capsule may contain about 50 mg of PPA and between 100 mg and 200 mg of caffeine, a look-alike capsule can carry 50 mg of PPA and 200 mg to 500 mg of caffeine, which in heavy doses can cause heart or respiratory failure. Says Dr. John Spikes, an Illinois toxicologist: “People hear caffeine, and they think of a cup of coffee. You get between 50 mg and 100 mg in a cup of coffee. The people we’re seeing using these drugs are taking ten to 20 pills at once.” In other words, they can ingest the caffeine of dozens of cups of coffee in one gulp. In the past two years, look-alikes have been implicated in the deaths of at least 14 people in New York, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, California and Illinois.
For the small manufacturers and dealers who purvey lookalikes, the product yields a lot of money with little legal risk. Says Lieut. Robert Long of the Massachusetts state police narcotics unit: “A dealer can buy about 1,000 look-alike pills for $45 per jar, or approximately 4¢ each. Then he goes out to some eighth-grader and sells those same pills for $2 apiece. Right off the bat he’s making a profit of more than $2,000.”
Ads for mail-order look-alikes (“safe, effective and legal”) have appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan and Chicago’s Reader and in leaflets passed out at rock concerts and in schoolyards. Ironically, the only instance in which it is not legal to make or sell them is when a manufacturer or dealer claims they are real amphetamines. In that case he can be prosecuted for fraud. But sellers carefully label look-alikes as “stimulants” and often include warnings about maximum dosage. Says Lieut. Long: “Most of these guys are not going to make the mistake of claiming to have something they don’t. They just let the kids think they have it.”
Because the drugs are not mislabeled by the manufacturer the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for the safety and efficacy of drugs, can do nothing under present laws. Neither can the Drug Enforcement Administration, which applies laws only against illegal use of controlled substances. But the U.S. Postal Service has filed complaints against 39 mail-order companies, charging them with misrepresenting the safety of their products. Delaware was the first of several states to pass special statutes against lookalikes, known as “turkey” laws, so named because “turkey” is the street term for phony drugs. Probably no serious headway will be made, however, until the Federal Government finds a way to block the look-alike loophole with a uniform national law.
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