17-year-old Tara Fitzgerald of Woodbury, Minnesota bought what she thought was LSD from fellow teenager, Brian Norlander. What she took looked very similar to LSD but it was not chemically like LSD. It was a synthetic drug called 25i-NBOMe — aka N-Bomb. Tara took it, and hours later she died.
Shortly after Fitzgerald’s death, Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said he was determined to “stop this scourge in the county” and “to track down where it [the synthetic drug] came from and who distributed it.” Five people including three teenagers were charged and convicted of providing Fitzgerald with the drug that led to her death. What is N-bomb? A Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor said this about N-bomb and other synthetics last year:
“The quality control on these street drugs is nonexistent, and misjudging a dose could lead to significant toxicity. Some of the symptoms of toxicity may include hypertension, rapid or irregular heartbeat, hyperthermia, dilated pupils, agitation, aggressive behavior, delirium, hallucinations, seizures and even renal failure or coma.”
Dateline NBC will air its investigative report on synthetic drugs which are notoriously cheap, easy to get and often marketed specific to young people, on February 21 at 7pm.
