Laws and Legal Issues

During the 1980s, illegal drug makers began to slightly alter the chemical composition of certain hallucinogens and other substances. The motive behind making these new designer drugs was to skirt legal definitions of the original substances. Because the new product had a different chemical makeup, the drug maker could claim that it was legal. During the late 1990s, many illicit manufacturers began advertising designer drugs as “research chemicals” on the Internet. They argued that legally, they were selling their wares for research purposes, not for illegal use as narcotics.