‘Purer’ form of Ecstasy not yet seen by local cops

In Kinston and Lenoir County, you can find marijuana, crack, prescription opiates and the occasional cocaine and heroin.

But according to law enforcement, you can’t find Molly … yet.

The synthetic drug is supposed to be the purer form of Ecstasy, which found its niche in raves and dance clubs in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

Detective B.L. Turner with the Kinston Department of Public Safety said the drug will most likely make inroads into the area — it’s more of a matter of time.

“Honestly, I’ve only seen it one time in the past, probably, two years,” Turner said. “We hear about it, of course, from entertainment areas and like that, but as far as actually seeing it on a regular basis, it’s not as prevalent as your other common drugs.”

Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Ryan Dawson said there’s not much of a sign of it in the county, either.

“We’ve not seen so much the clear pill where we’re getting it,” Dawson said. “We haven’t seen that here yet — maybe it might be coming around us, I don’t know. But our narcotics officers are not aware of it. The only thing they’re aware of, like I said, they come in different colors depending on who made it — blue, purple, yellow, orange, whatever.”

While the multi-colored pressed-pill version decreased in popularity over the last 20 years, the last several years have seen a rise in Molly, which is distinctive by being a white or off-white powder contained in capsule.

Seizures of MDMA — 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, the main ingredient in Ecstasy — on the Canadian border jumped from 500 pounds in 2006 to more than 1,000 pounds in 2010 according to the U.S. Justice Department, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection made 2,670 confiscations of MDMA in 2012, compared to 186 in 2008.

The drug has been in headlines from a trend piece in the New York Times to stories on CNN, MTV and local news affiliates.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration first gave emergency drug scheduling to Molly in September 2002, calling the substance inside the capsules TMFPP — 1-(3-Trifluoromethylphenyl) piperazine — and benzylpiperazine (BZP).

While the drug is more often sold as pure or near-pure MDMA, there’s no way for a buyer to immediately tell what’s in the capsule and what’s not. A piece by Rula Al-Nasrawi on Vice.com describes how dealers are selling mephedrone — known as Meow Meow or MCAT — in place of Molly, without necessarily disclosing that fact to the buyer.

Al-Nasrawi quotes a New York City dealer — under the pseudonym Mo Napoli — who said moving to mephedrone and selling it as Molly was the new trend.

“Why would I get MDMA, if I can just call some dude in China and have him send me Meow Meow for a fraction of the price, that I can still sell for the same money,” Napoli asked.

Like mephedrone’s cousins in the “bath salts” family, it is known to cause paranoia and hallucinations.

As the Molly brand — no matter what’s in the capsule — has grown in popularity, its niche in the culture branched out. Starting out in the Electronic Dance Music crowd, like its Ecstasy forbearer, Molly has since been getting around, and gone deep into popular hip-hop.

Several artists have been name-checked in articles about the drug and pop culture — Gucci Mane, Kanye West, Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Trinidad James.

“Maybe it’ll be easier to demonize Molly now that rough-and-tough hip hop is into it,” Amos Barshad wrote in February for Grantland.com. “Maybe it’ll be easier just because there’s a critical mass of famous people shouting it out. Either way, the seal has been broken on Molly’s histrionic local news reports. Let’s see what comes down the pipeline next.”

Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.