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Darknet Drug Dealers Arrested After Packages of Meth-Laced Adderall Repeatedly Returned to Sender

Police arrested three men accused of selling thousands of pills of meth-laced “Adderall” on various darknet marketplaces and mailing them through the United States Postal Service through a fictitious business called “Professional Paper Filing Inc.” that listed a real return address of an uninvolved business. That business then told police that it was repeatedly getting packages of pills in the mail as "return to sender."

The men face a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment.

toiletobserver ,

How to not get caught...

Chozo ,
@Chozo@kbin.social avatar

That's why you use a fake return address that doesn't exist. Allowing your product to get into real people's hands was just asking for trouble.

NocturnalEngineer ,

Surely the USPS would then just open the package, to try and identify who the sender was instead?

Chozo ,
@Chozo@kbin.social avatar

I don't believe USPS can open packages without a warrant (which is why they're the preferred courier for drugs), and I don't think "multiple packages going to a wrong address" counts as probable cause. But it's been a minute since I've been involved in that end of things, so I dunno if that's still current protocol.

Guest_User ,

Wrong, fake addresses get picked up and flagged quickly. Valid addresses are required to keep the operation moving. One dark net dealer used the addresses of sex offenders as the addresses are publicly listed, and he didn't care if they got caught with drugs.

IphtashuFitz ,

https://www.uspis.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/USPIS-FAQs.pdf

Per #4 they need a warrant to open first class mail only. All other mail they can open without a warrant.

If it’s first class and they think the contents violate federal law then they can get a warrant. I doubt many legitimate pharmacies etc. ship pills via first class, and certainly not with a bogus return address. If they saw a pattern of that I would expect a warrant wouldn’t be too difficult to get.

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

Dexter thinking right here.

RealFknNito ,
@RealFknNito@lemmy.world avatar

I'm not defending sex offenders but some of the things that get you lumped into that group are definitely not equal to others. Getting caught pissing in a bush, for instance, not exactly what we think of.

DAMunzy ,

Luckily you can look up the details of most of the cases. Usually it's pretty to figure out which are simple junk out to pee and jamming your unwanted p in the v. Exposing the p but not to pee can be a little more difficult to determine but most of those guys (because it's normally guys) don't go any further than that (100% not trying to justify the behavior).

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Have you guys considered that framing dudes who, by definition, have served their time is wrong regardless?

satanmat ,

Oh no! Dark web sites? Where are they, so I can be sure to avoid them?

scottmeme ,

https://dark.fail

quicksand ,

Good to see they're still around

grue ,

Meth-laced Adderall

Oh no, the amphetamine was contaminated with amphetamine! 🙄

I'm aware that meth and Adderall aren't the exact same chemical, but this isn't like putting carfentanyl in heroin. "Laced" is some sensationalized bullshit.

DolphinMath OP ,

“Aren’t the exact same” is a huge understatement…

ivanafterall ,
@ivanafterall@kbin.social avatar

Adderall literally contains a 3:1 mixture of d-amphetamine to l-amphetamine. This is a horseshit way of trying to make it sound like a bigger deal than it is.

BearOfaTime ,

I have family with ADHD, depending on the pharmacy, its either "amphetamine salt" or occasionally "methamphetamine something" (I forget). Yea, it's a variation of methamphetamine, and disingenuous to say otherwise, as the idea is to keep a specific area of the brain stimulated (it's been a long time since I read up on it).

That's not a criticism of the drug. I've seen the impact first hand for someone who I'm close to. It may be over diagnosed today, but ADHD is a real condition.

DolphinMath OP ,

The issue is typically one of strength, contamination, and overall effect. Ignoring chemical differences and impurities, it’s like giving Fentanyl to someone expecting Oxycodone.

kernelle ,

That's like saying table salt might explode if it touches water lmao

metaStatic ,

in the ground for millions of years, expires next June.

eleitl ,

If the dose is adjusted methamphetamine is indistinguishable from amphetamine in its subjective effect. Desoxyn is prescription methamphetamine.

Maven ,
@Maven@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

These are wildly different medications. Meth is occasionally used for ADHD when nothing else works, but it requires careful medical supervision, for life. A pharmacist subbing out your amphetamine salts for meth will go to jail. Adderal is not meth, any more than caffeine is adrenaline, or morphine is fentanyl.

You say you "have family" with ADHD; do you mean you have multiple different family members on different medications? Because 9 outta 10 times someone tells me they know someone on "meth" for ADHD, they've misread methylphenadate; Ritalin.

DolphinMath OP ,

Indistinguishable no, but both are stimulants approved to treat ADHD and have similar effects.

If the dose is adjusted, fentanyl has a similar effect to oxycodone as well.

Deello ,

But not before the grinder blades go dull.

Cheems ,
@Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

Beer is like 95%~ water therefore it is pretty much water.

nikt ,

Those are some really bad comparisons. Caffeine and adrenaline have nothing to do with each other. A better comparison might be maybe heroin and morphine?

Methamphetamine and the amohetamines in Adderal aren’t all that different. Same mechanism of action, similar pharmacology. Meth is actually sold in the US as a Desoxyn. It still blows my mind that it’s Schedule II (classified as having legitimate medical uses) when cannabis is still Schedule I.

skillissuer ,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

nope, grue is right. medical anti-adhd amphetamines use vs street use mostly boils down to dose and route of administration. there is difference in potency but not some massive like with fentanyl vs heroin (20x)

eleitl ,

It is subjectively indistinguishable from lysdexamfetamine (Vyvanse/Elvanse) at equivalent dosage in several ADHD patients' opinion.

Corkyskog ,

Most people would never notice an equivalent dose. Mexico has been selling meth adderall to medical tourists for years now, and people only found out it wasnt adderall when agencies got involved and started testing them.

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

We put amphetamine in your amphetamine. So now you have 64% more amphetamine per amphetamine. — Heavy ADHD guy

PotatoesFall ,

This is definitely 110% laced. Meth is not amphetamine, its methamphetamine which has different effects and a VERY different duration, not to mention much higher addiction potential.

Sure they are both stimulants, but both heroin and carfentanyl are opioids.

Maybe you have been misled as to what laced means? It does not necessarily mean that it's deadly

PotatoesFall ,

meth is neither of those chemicals. meth is methamphetamine which has different effects, more risks, is more addictive and has a MUCH longer duration.

michaelmrose ,

Adderall is legally able to be prescribed to kids with ADHD. Meth is produced with a dirty chemical process that has become more prevalent with the decreasing availability of pseudoephedrin. Medical professionals working rehabs report worse and longer lasting damage quicker than is reasonable for merely staying awake and up constantly the primary risk from stimulants.

PotatoesFall ,

That is misinformation. methamphetamine is more addictive and has about twice the duration of amphetamine, not to mentiom different effects.

michaelmrose ,

Damaging contaminants from production, unknown potency leading to accidental overdose if pure, adulterants added to "cut" the drugs. If you account for dosage, method of introduction, and difference in drugs its about as massive. There is a reason people who take addrerall don't regress to non-verbal and walk around hallucinating after being up for 3 days and take 6 months to dry out and relearn how to talk.

grue ,

Adderall is legally able to be prescribed to kids with ADHD.

So is meth, except they use the brand name "Desoxyn."

lolcatnip ,

It's prescribed in theory. Mostly, I think, for people with narcolepsy, not kids with ADHD. My psychiatrist has had me try basically every ADHD medication and he has never once mentioned Desoxyn. And I knew a couple of pharmacy techs for a few years who definitely would have told me if they'd seen Desoxyn prescribed because it's the kind of trying they'd have been very excited about stealing from work.

skillissuer ,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

contamination with weird shit only happens with small scale manufacturing using no purification at all. large scale manufacturers will usually know a bit or two about organic chemistry, and processes more suitable for large scale manufacture don't introduce them at all (and don't require pseudoephedrine)

yes, the difference is dose, you'll see the same shit in people popping 50 adderal pills a day

skillissuer ,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

the only real difference is t1/2, fine, but it hits the same receptors with potency that is at least in the same ballpark (as in, not 10x, more like 2x)

You999 ,

Neither D-amphetamine or L-amphetamine are methamphetamine. Methyl groups are lipid soluble which dissolves quickly into to your blood stream and effortlessly crosses the blood brain barrier. This makes methamphetamine significantly more potent compared to amphetamines. This is extremely dangerous as the dosage for amphetamines is double that of methamphetamines when taken orally.

Rai ,

They feel VERY similar if you’re eating or insufflating them!

Rai ,

Meth has a pretty similar duration to adderall when you eat, insufflate, or plug. I can’t comment on smokin’.

Rai ,

Hell yeah! I’ll just eat half as much.

Rai ,

The only prescribed methamphetamine is Desoxyn.

grue ,

Damaging contaminants from production, unknown potency leading to accidental overdose if pure, adulterants added to “cut” the drugs.

You say that as if black-market adderall wouldn't be similarly risky even if it weren't "laced" with anything. Quit conflating risked caused by the means of production with risks caused by the different chemistry.

grue ,

it’s like giving Fentanyl to someone expecting Oxycodone.

Doing that (without adjusting the dose) would likely kill them because difference in potency (and LD50) is absolutely massive. The difference in potency between Desoxyn and Adderall exists, but it's way, way, way smaller than that. In terms of the riskiness of drugs that may be "laced" with their more-potent counterpart, they aren't even slightly comparable.

Nobody's going to OD and die because they accidentally got some Desoxyn in their Adderall.

michaelmrose ,

In finite controlled quantities while under the care of a doctor and not containing contaminants, injected, or snorted.

michaelmrose ,

I wonder what you are basing this on? I'm guessing neither you nor I are actually in the drug industry. Clinicians and people dealing directly with the problem say differently. They busted a multistory reactor with tons of reactants waiting to be processed. Most of the people who were busted working there ultimately died of liver failure. Clinicians say that people drying out from the newer P2P meth display qualitatively different experiences with much longer periods of recovery after shorter periods of addiction. Previously P2P meth was low quality and undesired because it contained a large quantity of undesirable materials that lead to heart pounding as opposed to a desirable high. Improved processes allow chemists to remove the obvious undesirable quantities but are believed to produce introduce contaminants.

My source is a nytimes and other legitimate press as opposed to drug use.

michaelmrose ,

Historically black market adderall was a an issue of diversion where legitimate pills were diverted to illegal drug sales in part by patients and in part by wholesalers or others in the legitimate drug pipeline as opposed to you know being meth

skillissuer ,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

well, i guess you're guessing correctly about yourself, but you're guessing wrong about me (partially)

Most of the people who were busted working there ultimately died of liver failure.

as a chemist this doesn't surprise me at all. at every step you'll see, typically, something like 10g of solvent per 1g of product. then there's some solvent being used for purification as well, how much of it depends on technique being used. i doubt that visit of osha is the top concern of cartel lab manager, so these poor sods are going to be soaked in solvents, or at least solvent vapours 24/7. it's the liver that deals with it all and if it can't do it effectively, most notably this happens with chlorinated solvents (cheap, convenient, low boiling: DCM) liver gets fucked and that's the end result. some routes involve such friendly chemicals like benzyl chloride, this won't help either

when i was talking about impurities i was mostly talking about residual iodine, alkyl iodides, some weird phosphorus(III) compounds, occasional aziridine and such. similar compounds were responsible for side effects of a drug most commonly known as krokodil. i forgor about (R)-meth, chemically speaking, both (S)- and (R)- isomers are meth, these just differ in pharmacology, the active being (S)- and (R)- just being decongestant. usual P2P process provides 1:1 mix of them, but separation could probably make the process rather expensive (and what do you do with (R)-meth?). i suspect that instead someone developed an asymmetric P2P process, or something else entirely, which means that big meth labs moved from first year organic chemistry lab level to bsc thesis level. that's a progress, i guess, probably to be accompanied by new and exciting cases of heavy metal poisonings in the future

i understand it's a cultural thing. in US, as i suspect you are american, meth is sold in bulk drug of the poors, and amphetamine is (illegally) sold as pills to stock gamblers^W^W^W traders and SV engineers, that is the rich. this is absolutely not a global situation and for example in my country the street stimulant of choice is amphetamine sold as a bulk powder and i can assure you it can be every bit just as destructive. and this is before you consider things like alpha-pvp that have paranoia as an intended feature and there are people that like this effect specifically. goes without saying that street stimulant users won't be usually very picky about what they will try that day. just in the case it's unclear: i'm not saying that meth is good or that evil psychiatrists poison kids with adhd with drugs, i'm saying that you're underestimating how dangerous amphetamine can be, in some contexts, in comparison to meth.

my source for that is my own degree in organic chemistry, former flatmate that worked in harms reduction organization, and not having my head firmly embedded in my ass. i won't disturb your smug undeserved sense of superiority anymore, have a nice day

DolphinMath OP ,

404 Media – Bias and Credibility

Bias Rating: Left-Center

Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual

Country: USA

MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: Mostly Free

Media Type: Website

Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic

MBFC Credibility Rating: High Credibility

About MediaBiasFactCheck.com

Methodology

Zozano ,

Is this a bot? If so, good bot.
If not, good not-bot.

DolphinMath OP ,

Haha, no bot at this time. Just me copying and pasting in a template. Maybe one day if I get better at coding.

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