'GAS-STATION HEROIN' | Free News

Nearly a dozen bills to kill ‘legal opioids’ died in committee

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Fentanyl and methamphetamine are being smuggled across the southern border at record rates, law enforcement officials have been reporting for months. 

    But some of the most dangerous, destructive drugs out there are being sold in the open from convenience-store counters to customers of all ages, Jones County Drug Court Coordinator Consuelo Walley said.

The easy availability of kratom and now the even more powerful tianeptine presents a major concern for participants in the program who are trying to kick their addictions, and for parents who want to prevent their children from using drugs, Walley warned.

“I’m mad as hell about this stuff,” she said. “I’m scared to death of what it can do to our community. It could quickly become an epidemic. Parents need to be aware of it. It’s so readily accessible, anyone can just walk in a gas station and get it. It’s not regulated whatsoever. A 10-year-old can buy it.”

Tianeptine — also known as Zazas or Pegasus — is the newest substance being marketed as a dietary supplement or antidepressant, she said, but it has opioid-like effects, and it can’t be detected by ordinary urine tests. It’s even worse than kratom, another substance that’s been being sold at convenience stores — even advertised in neon lights beside beer brands, at some — despite studies and FDA warnings that declare it unsafe and illegal. Some states and countries have banned it, but not Mississippi.

The danger of kratom was first brought to the attention of the state Legislature at least three years ago, yet nothing has been done about it, Walley said, “and tianeptine isn’t even on their radar yet,” she added.

At least 11 bills have been presented to lawmakers since 2020 — including one by Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) in 2021 — but all died in committee, Walley said.

“It’s very discouraging and eye-opening,” she said. “They’ve had 11 opportunities, and they haven’t done anything. Gauging by their refusal to do anything about kratom so far, I feel that the money behind these products is doing some talking.”

And her real fear now is that it will take longer to do anything about tianeptine before too many lives have been destroyed by it. It’s already a “huge problem” in her drug court, even though it’s likely only a fraction of the offenders are being caught. 

That’s because the cost of testing for kratom and tianeptine is prohibitive. A “cup test” urinalysis for traditional illegal drugs costs $5; a special toxicology test for kratom and tianeptine costs $114. That’s a budget-buster for the drug court’s limited funds.

Because of that, a new policy is in place to use software to randomly select a handful of the 64 drug-court participants to be tested for them. Since then, six people tested positive in a six-week time period, and that’s what’s troubling Walley. Participants have to pay for the cost of the test if they test positive.

“This stuff is so addictive, they’re unable to stop even though they know they’re about to get caught … knowing prison is being held over their head, they still couldn’t stop,” she said. 

Some of the addictions have been so serious, medical detox was required, Walley said. One who detoxed in jail told Walley he had done every drug in his lifetime, but “never had any of them do him like tianeptine did,” she said. 

“They’re addicted in days, and when they try to stop, they’re ill in three hours,” she said. “They just couldn’t stop … and this stuff is infiltrating our schools, which scares me.”

The substances can be ordered online or purchased at just about any convenience store. One that’s about a mile from the Jones County Drug Court in Ellisville is stocked full of the stuff. It “hits on all of the opioid receptors” and produces an opioid-like high — for $20 a bottle — which is why it’s called “gas-station heroin,” Walley said.

Some drug-court participants who were caught using it admitted to using three to four bottles per day, and it caused them to slip back to their old ways — missing work, getting behind on their fees and generally slacking, Walley said

“We work so hard to help them change the trajectory of their life … and now this stuff that they can get for $20 a pop in a gas station can undo it all,” she said.

Judge Dal Williamson, who works closely with the drug-court participants, is mad about that, too.

Tianeptine and kratom are just “substitute drugs” that users take to “get around the controlled-substance laws,” he said. “I just put one in jail, and we were afraid he was going to die because of medical concerns. I can’t understand how the Legislature is not making it illegal … It’s like they don’t care.”

Alabama and Michigan have made tianeptine a scheduled drug. Walley is working with the Administrative Office of Courts in Jackson to propose legislation in the next term to make it a scheduled drug here or to at least regulate who it can be sold to, she said.

“I refuse to sit back and not make some noise on what this stuff is doing to our community,” she said.

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