Drugs on demand: Methylone proves easy to get

By Scott Daugherty The Virginian-Pilot July 23, 2012

PORTSMOUTH

Step one to becoming an importer of designer street drugs: Email a laboratory in China.

Step two: Wire a few thousand dollars to a friendly, English-speaking customer service representative.

Step three: Wait for the postal carrier.

According to federal court documents, that is how two Portsmouth men were able to bring almost 100 pounds of an Ecstasy-like stimulant called methylone to Virginia.

No clandestine airfields. No henchmen with machine guns. No crooked customs agents.

"It's probably easier than buying a case of wine online," said Richard Yarow, an attorney for a man who pleaded guilty last month to helping one of the importers wire money to China. "When you buy wine you at least have to show ID" when it is delivered.

Methylone, also known as lone, is relatively new to the U.S. drug scene - so much so that Yarow and other defense attorneys involved in these cases found themselves having to do research just to figure out what their clients were charged with dealing.

A white crystalline powder that is usually snorted, swallowed or mixed into drinks, methylone gained notoriety in the United States last year as a club drug popular at raves and electronic music shows, according to court documents and federal agents.

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Drugs on demand: Methylone proves easy to get