Advertisement

Bill Signed to Ban ‘Designer Drugs’

Share

Gov. George Deukmejian late Monday signed a San Diego County-inspired measure to outlaw all current and future “designer drugs” affecting the body in ways similar to methamphetamine.

The new law, sponsored by Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), is aimed at stopping designer-drug manufacturers from getting around legal prohibitions by simply changing ingredients to invent new drugs not yet outlawed.

Killea’s measure outlaws all drugs that simulate methamphetamine and PCP, no matter what their molecular structure.

Advertisement

“We are sending a strong signal to the illegal drug manufacturing industry,” Killea said Tuesday. “Circumventing our drug-control laws will be far more difficult. This legislation makes it harder for street chemists to flood our communities with variations of illegal drugs.”

Killea’s bill is the latest in more than half a dozen measures passed by the Legislature since 1986 and aimed at slowing the manufacture of designer drugs in the county. The measures were passed at the urging of county law enforcement officials, who are constantly raiding local homes and seizing homemade laboratory equipment.

The proliferation of designer drugs in San Diego County has earned it the reputation of “meth capital” of the country, but drug agents report a slight downturn in the number of labs seized in the last year. Between Oct. 1, 1986, and Sept. 30, 1987, agents seized 186 labs, contrasted with 96 since then, said a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Advertisement