Making a Substance Illegal Not an Easy Process

The process of declaring a drug a controlled substance—something that is generally illegal to possess—is anything but easy.

For an item to make its way into Schedule I of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Controlled Substances Act, which includes drugs such as marijuana and synthetic heroin, the substance needs to meet multiple criteria. These include: an imminent hazard to public safety, a potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

In March, the DEA added five of the chemicals sprayed on synthetic marijuana to the emergency control list after proving the substances met the criteria. 

"It can take about a year to go through that process," said Special Agent Will Taylor, a spokesman for the U.S. DEA's Chicago division.

Meanwhile, the creators of these drugs, which are primarily manufactured overseas in countries such as China and India, avoid the controlled substance list by creating new recipes that will give customers the same high, from other chemical compounds not specifically banned by authorities. The newer product formulas are likely variants of what was outlawed, under the same family of compounds.

"The chemists tweaked one atom within the molecules of the chemical compound, so the chemical structure is not the same," Taylor said.

Adding a substance permanently to the Controlled Substances Act is even more difficult. Aside from getting a study done from the Department of Health and Human Services, the government must also prove that the substances are intended for human consumption.

And since most synthetic marijuana products are labeled as incense, that can be a tough argument to make.

Taylor said the DEA, as a federal agency, is often too tied up with wholesale drug traffickers to make that argument. So law enforcement's hope is that legislation comes through.

"A lot of states can move forward much more quickly than we can," he said.

New Drugs, New Laws

A new law in Wisconsin went into effect this month prohibiting synthetic cannabinoids and their analogs, or slightly different substances similar in chemical makeup. Taylor said this type of law is effective in its ability to blanket synthetic cannabinoids and close loopholes for drug developers.

Last Friday, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a new law banning MDPV, the active ingredient in a different class of drugs: synthetic MDMA and cocaine products known as "bath salts."

Illinois has also banned K2 and other synthetic marijuana substances, but not their variants. For more information about synthetic marijuana, click .

Taylor said federal legislation is in the works too. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced a bill outlawing bath salts, but the bill remains at the committee level. The Dangerous Synthetic Drug Control Act of 2011 also remains in committee.

Drug enforcement officials also hope to target more of the synthetic marijuana distributors by pursuing any drugs being sold with compounds similar to those already outlawed. These variant products are known as analogs, or analogues.

The DEA is able to regulate any analogs of drugs in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. 

Taylor said sweeping legislation banning both substances and their analogs may be the best solution to deter users from substances that may have led to the last month.

"We do need more of a broad legislative move," he said. "Unfortunately, trying to stay ahead of it and identify as many new compounds as possible is very difficult ... the real answer is better legislation."