Smack!

There isn’t very much that’s funny about heroin addiction. Although there is some disagreement how severe the cravings for the drug can become no one argues that the drug is a powerful draw to some. Heroin addiction is closely associated with crime and disease. Recent events in a McDonalds in Wyoming point this out. Three guys came up with a scheme to get real heroin by selling fake heroin and got caught. Although there is probably some humor somewhere in the idea these three unfortunate souls got busted for selling bags of pancake mix as heroin I won’t be going there. Heroin is often diluted with many different substances. Watering down the stuff gives a dealer more volume for sale so they often cut it with whatever is cheap and plentiful. Baby laxative, sugar, rat poison and other drugs are shoveled into the bags and sold as the real deal. Recently in Philadelphia 116 people were sent to the hospital in a rash of incidents where heroin was cut with a drug called scopolamine. Scopolamine is normally prescribed for motion sickness. In higher doses it can cause delirium, delusions, paralysis, stupor and death. None of these additives does the junkie any good but cutting the drug with pancake mix is a particularly nasty idea. As anyone who has ever made pancakes knows the mix swells when it hits moisture and when injected into someone’s vein that’s not a good thing. The three arrested in Wyoming weren’t cutting real heroin. All they had was pancake mix which they sold to somebody for $100 with hopes of cruising to New Jersey to buy some of the real stuff. In spite of the fact that they sold a few pennies worth of Aunt Jemima’s they were charged with possession and intent to deliver a counterfeit controlled substance which brings with it the same sort of penalties associated with selling the real deal. The penalties probably will not stop there, however. There’s probably a pretty good chance that the three flapjack mix dealers were not caught the first time they sold the fake stuff. Now that their names and faces have been published in the newspaper whoever they sold the fake stuff to will probably want to have some words with them. I don’t think the conversation will be about the merits of real maple syrup with your pancakes. And I can imagine that any time they do in the lock-up will be unpleasant for them if their cellmates discover what they were up to. Lot’s of guys in jail use heroin or know somebody who does and probably will have a problem with the pancake mix dealers.