New Designer Drug Turns Up In Northeast Oklahoma

By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

UNDATED -- A new designer drug has made its way to Green Country.

A grand jury has filed charges against three people who had 5,000 BZP tablets. It's the first case the U.S. attorney's office here has seen.

This is so new in Oklahoma, some of the drug agents The News On 6 talked with on Friday had never heard of it. 

BZP is Benzylpiperazine. On the streets, it's known as Legal E, Legal X, frenzy or Nemesis. It's a party drug and is legal in Canada and the UK, but highly illegal in the U.S.

BZP is used by people in their teens or 20's to get that high, euphoric, invincible feeling. Some people report it gives them the energy to party all night long. 

In addition to the psychosis it can bring on, there's another unappealing side effect, which is why some drug agents don't think it will catch on here.

"The interesting thing about it though, it also causes incontinence, so you could be out there on the dance floor and you're taking it and you're liable to wet your pants and become embarrassed," said David Hale, OK Bureau of Narcotics.

The pills range from 20 to 100 milligrams and can sell for $2 a pill on the streets and come in a number of colors and many of them have stamps on them. 

One pill, clearly meant to appeal to younger users, has cartoon character Bart Simpson's face stamped on it. 

The ones confiscated in Green Country were blue and orange and have been sent to the lab in Dallas. 

BZP is similar in ways to the drug ecstasy and often mistaken for it.

"They sell it as X all the time because they don't know any better. People who buy this stuff, unfortunately our youth, don't know what they're buying half the time anyway," said David Hale.

Designer drugs are often created to get around drug laws and their sale exploded in the past 10 years, thanks to them being readily available on the internet. 

Cops say the problem is no one ever knows what has been put into a pill they might buy and take.

The three people charged are from Oklahoma City, Chickasha and Michigan. 

BZP is a schedule one narcotic in Oklahoma, meaning there is no legitimate, pharmaceutical use for it, so if you're caught with it, you're busted.