Synthetic Drug Revolution: Sneak Peek (VICE on HBO)

In the course of one week in last spring, more than 100 teenagers in Dallas overdosed on a drug called K2. In August, the governor of New Hampshire declared a state of emergency because of 44 overdoses linked to the bubblegum flavor of a drug called “Smacked.” This is the world of synthetic drugs, manmade chemical compounds often engineered to skirt narcotics laws—and some of the most frequently abused substances in American high schools.

The makers of these drugs race to keep head of law enforcement by making incremental changes in the compounds’ molecular structure, even though the effects of those alterations can turn out to be dangerous. VICE correspondent Hamilton Morris tracks these chemicals back to the Chinese factories where many are made, and meets the godfather of modern synthetic drugs at his remote lab in New Zealand.
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