DEALING WITH MOLLY
SARAH GROTHJAN | sg409809@ohiou.edu
Editor’s Note: Tanner Lahl’s name was changed to protect his identity.
Clad in a green flannel with a cross resting at the nape of his neck, Tanner Lahl recounted his most recent job title, occasionally wringing his hands with nervous tension or softening his voice when detailing his work.
Lahl, a 21-year-old Ohio University senior studying electrical engineering, upstarted a business that fed a customer base of students seeking illicit drugs. After selling for about a year, Lahl said he quit dealing and using drugs after “Jesus saved (him)” during a particularly intense LSD trip.
But before he made the decision to quit dealing, Lahl said he worked mainly as an LSD dealer, with DMT serving as another highly requested drug that he regularly sold to students.
When he wasn’t dealing, Lahl experimented with drugs he purchased prior to selling to students. Though he had few qualms at the time about selling, and even prided himself on the high quality of drugs he regularly sold, he kept one increasingly popular drug in short supply — Molly.
Molly is best known as the “pure” form of Ecstasy and is taken orally as a powder.
Krista Duval, a provider at Campus Care, said the student health center has witnessed an increase in the number of students who admit to having taken the drug. The increase was a topic of a discussion at a regular provider meeting held last semester.
“The meeting was called for other reasons, and it was kind of just in passing,” Duval said. “Kind of just heightened awareness. We’re all seeing it.”
Lahl described the drug as “sketchy” and said he only purchased small quantities to sell to close friends.
“Molly’s very social,” he said. “People will do it and go out or bring it out, unlike DMT; you’re not going to bring that anywhere.”
Lahl said he typically broke even when peddling Molly to students, selling it for about $10 a hit, or a tenth of a milligram. He added that it wasn’t uncommon for Molly to include other drugs as well, including methamphetamine, cocaine and bath salts.
“Ecstasy is usually cut with another drug, or more than one drug,” Lahl said. “A lot of times, they usually cut Molly with some kind of other amphetamine, like meth, a lot of times around here.”
Lahl said a user can distinguish whether the drug is cut, or laced, with another drug by noting whether the tongue turns numb upon ingestion. If the tongue doesn’t turn numb, Lahl said it is likely cut with another drug.
He also noted that Molly should have a noticeable crystalline structure; if it lacks the crystalline structure, or if the texture of the powder is similar to that of flour and can be packed, it is likely cut with another drug.
“When I was getting out of (dealing), a lot of Molly was being cut with bath salts,” he said, adding he once sold Molly that he believed to be mixed with cocaine.
Though Lahl contended that Molly is a popular drug among college-age students, Kristina Washington, assistant director for health promotion at the Campus Involvement Center, said that according to the center’s most recent drug survey in 2011, only 1.2 percent of students reported using Ecstasy within 30 days of taking the survey. Molly was not among the surveyed drugs.
“All Molly is, is the powder form (of Ecstasy),” Washington said. “It’s going to have a higher level of purity to it versus the tablet. Really there’s no difference between the two.”
She said one of the risks of taking Molly is that the user has a difficult time discerning whether the drug is pure or cut with another drug.
“Because they are man-made, it’s hard to know exactly how much gets in there, so someone who wants to make some money off of what they’re doing might not put as much MDMA substance in it,” she said.
Other substances that can be found in Molly include detergent, talcum powder, ibuprofen and caffeine.
Long-term risks of taking Molly include increased depression and anxiety along with long-term and short-term memory loss, all of which can be permanent, Washington added.
“(Molly’s) a fun drug, and there’s a lot of circles with Molly,” Lahl said. “There’s a lot of people who do it, and a lot of cops looking for people who are doing Molly.”
COLLEGE DRUG USE
LINDSAY FRIEDMAN
| lf328610@ohiou.edu
Molly isn’t the only drug causing a ruckus on college campuses.
Among the top substances are alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs such as Adderall, said Kristina Washington, assistant director for health promotion at Ohio University’s Campus Involvement Center.
Monitoring the Future, a study published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reported college and high school students have shown an increase in marijuana and illicit drug use. According to the study, 59 percent of today’s young adults have tried an illicit drug and 33 percent of those users have tried a drug other than or in addition to marijuana.
“(The rise) certainly surprised me, and it’s a concern,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, director of the division of epidemiology, services and prevention research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The last time specialists saw such a high percentage of students using drugs was in the early 1980s, Compton added.
Drug use exists on OU’s campus as well, according to the annual Drug and Alcohol survey conducted by the Campus Involvement Center.
The study reported that 19 percent of OU’s incoming students used marijuana, 4 percent used medications for ADHD, 3 percent had used cocaine and Ecstasy and about 2 percent reported using opiate-type drugs or heroin.
Taking note of the gradual increase in prescription drug and marijuana use, Washington said the organization has received a $2,500 grant from the Cardinal Health Foundation to jumpstart prescription drug prevention campaigns.
“It concerns me,” Washington said. “There’s this perception that if it can be legalized as medicine, then it must be good. … There’s this notion of, if it’s just a little bit, I’ll outgrow it when I graduate and get a job and a degree, and it’s very hard to catch.”
Ardy Gonyer, assistant director for the Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility, said OU has recently updated drug and alcohol policies to include an additional $100 fine and mandatory community service in addition to classes and counseling. Officials are also considering refining the policy to become clearer for student interpretation.
“(The issue) is true for all college campuses,” Gonyer said. “Our goal at any point is to be educational and help students.”
Dr. Sanda Gibson, a clinical counselor at OU, said the rise could have to do with the fact that students “are getting the idea that (drugs are) safe for everyone.”
“There are many social and cultural myths that have converged synergistically to create this impression of ‘no harm,’ ” she said. “Doing something ‘under the radar’ makes it more fun for some students. … It’s easier to make friends, flirt and so forth.”
Nevertheless, students are unaware of the effects of drug abuse because of the “intense level of pleasure” these drugs can create, said Dr. Joe Gay, director of Health Recovery Services in Athens. “It takes the pain out of things.”
Dr. Lloyd Johnston, a senior research scientist at the University of Michigan and the principal research investigator of the annual Monitoring the Future study of youth drug use, said he also finds the trends in drug use concerning because students are more likely to develop dependencies.
Gateway drugs, including marijuana, lead to experimentation with more illicit or dangerous drugs, he said.
Early drug use has also been found to lower IQ by about eight points, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gay said the precautions taken to prevent these issues at OU are steps taken in the right direction; however, he added, the battle is far from over.
“Athens is a town with a permissive attitude about many things, including drug and alcohol use,” he said. “Drug use is an issue in Athens and elsewhere. There’s clearly a national trend.”
ENFORCEMENT IN ATHENS
XANDER ZELLNER | az346610@ohiou.edu
Athens County has been a hot spot for heroin and prescription pill abuse, and the Narcotics Enforcement Team (NET) is putting its foot down to limit illegal drug dealing in the county.
In conjunction with the Athens County Sheriff’s Office, NET employs specific officers from Nelsonville, Glouster, the Ohio Investigative Unit and the Sheriff’s Office, among others, to enforce drug trade in southeast Ohio.
“Education, enforcement, and treatment” is the three-pronged approach Sheriff Pat Kelly takes in tackling the drug problem, and so far, the education and enforcement sides have been successful, Kelly said.
NET and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs encompass the enforcement and education prongs of Kelly’s approach to Athens’ drug problem.
“Our DARE programs are intended to educate the harms that these drugs have on people,” he said. The DARE program was founded in 1983 and is a nationwide program used to educate children and teens about drugs and violence.
Kelly said he refers people whom he encounters with drug problems to Health Recovery Services, a nonprofit corporation that helps people suffering from addiction.
Nelsonville Police Chief Jason Wallace has officers working for NET and said heroin is currently a nationwide problem.
“I personally don’t have a solution to the epidemic,” Wallace said. “At this point, all I can do is do what I can in my city to help.”
Though marijuana is the most prominent drug in Athens County, Kelly said the biggest problem in the county is heroin and prescription pill abuse, which is where he keeps his attention.
“I’d say that my concentration in Athens isn’t on marijuana — now, that doesn’t mean we don’t enforce it — but we have larger problems dealing with heroin and pills,” Kelly said. “(Heroin) is a problem at the university too.”
The penalty for possession of a controlled substance — including heroin — can result in a mandatory imprisonment of six months to 10 years, depending on the amount and type of drug, according to the Ohio Revised Code.
For Kelly, the third prong, treatment, hasn’t seen as much progress because of a lack of funding.
“(The funding) is not failing for education and enforcement because the money that I am using to go out and fight drugs is coming from drug dealers from seizures,” Kelly said. “When we bust a drug dealer and I seize their property, (their money) will go to the court, and the money is split between the prosecutor’s office (40 percent) and the sheriff’s office (60 percent) to continue fighting this problem.”
Kelly uses the vehicles of convicted drug dealers as squad cars or auctions them off to make a profit. Kelly said he currently has five undercover cars that came from drug dealers.
“We have five people on this force working on the NET team and their job is just to work drugs,” Kelly said. “(The NET) has no intention of talking to the media, and that’s one reason why they’re so good at what they do. It’s done by undercover work and done covertly.”
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