Legal drug with a ‘terrifying’ high

"Feel that they are being prosecuted" ... a user of the synthetic designer drug is treated by an ambulance officer in Surgut, Russia. Picture: Video web grab / The Siberian Times Source: News Corp Australia
SYNTHETIC designer drugs that give a legal high are being made in Russia and are available online.
The drugs, not known to the authorities and therefore not illegal, are deadly smoking blends.
Police and authorities have linked a batch of synthetic drugs bought online to the deaths of at least 13 people and poisoning of another 300 in the Siberian city of Surgut, and the northern Russian city of Kirov.
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“The impact is terrifying. One young man covered in blood, clutching a knife, threatened to throw himself from a window, before being talked down by neighbours,’ writes The Siberian Times.
“Others crash cars, violently attack neighbours, or suffer seizures in which their hearts and brains stop functioning.
“At the last count there are 12 addicts in the intensive care unit of Surgut District Hospital, and another 13 suffering acute psychosis in Surgut Neuro-Psychiatric Clinic.”
In the local cemetery in Surgut, journalists saw three graves — all male and aged around 30 — related to the epidemic. authorities said the youngest to die, to date, was aged 18.
Russia’s Federal Drug Control Agency warned that “this substance is an absolutely new designer drug made from two components”. The blends are being sold as synthetic marijuana or ‘Spice’.
A video taken by local TV shows the effects of the drug on young people in Surgut, where seven people have died and 187 have been poisoned in the past week.
Graves of the drug takers ... TV pictures show the death of three men in the Siberian city of Surgut, Russia. Picture: Web grab / Russia 1 Source: Supplied
It shows emergency services personnel with a man who has taken the synthetic drug. As he stands by a blue car, the man repeatedly gets on the ground, struggles to speak and controlling his body movements.
“I don’t think they will recover fully. The use of psychoactive substances destroys brain cells and may cause serious disability and loss of memory,” health official Nadezhda Volchanina said.
In Kirov, 35 of those poisoned were minors.
Police have made a dozen arrests in Surgut and the northern Russian city of Kirov which was targeted by drugs dealers selling the “poison” via the internet.
Authorities warn that the poisoning had spread beyond Surgut in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District.
“As a rule, they are brought in unconscious or seriously agitated. They can thrash about the ambulance or hospital emergency room. They feel that they are being persecuted,” said a doctor in Surgut, Andrei Novikov.
Synthetic Drugs parcelled into small balls with green and yellow covering. Picture: Web grab / SITV.ru Source: News Corp Australia
Symptoms include fear, anxiety, enlarged pupils, unsteadiness, and hallucinations. Some victims fell into a coma.
Police showed images of the drugs packaged in a yellow and green covering.
“The dead people bought the ‘designer drug’ in Surgut via an internet shop,” said Inga Snatkina, spokeswoman for the regional prosecutor in Siberia.
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