Snowballs From Hell

Concerns about the arrival of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromoamphetamine (DOB) in Ireland have intensified following the seizure on November 3 of 9.3 grams of the drug in powder form in Westport, County Mayo. Were it cocaine or amphetamine sulphate it would be a modest haul, but with the “threshold” dosage of DOB between 1 and 5mg, that amount of pure drug seized could be used to make as many as 9,300 pills.
The Gardai describe it as the “first seizure of DOB in Ireland”, contradicting an earlier statement made to hotpress in which they said they’d already made “a number of seizures” this year, although they weren’t able to specify how many because the figures were combined with those for Ecstasy.
The National Garda Drugs Unit aren’t prepared to discuss dosages, but even if the DOB recovered in Westport was only 25% pure it could have yielded over 2,000 tablets which, sold by dealers for €5 each, would net €10,000.
If repeated on a regular basis it suggests a highly profitable operation that would be attractive to organised crime gangs.
While almost certainly manufactured in Belgium or Holland, the Mayo seizure also raises the possibility of there being a DOB pill processing plant here in Ireland. The equipment is certainly inexpensive enough, with €12,500 buying you a 500-tablet pill press complete with logo stamps.
hotpress, for one, will be extremely interested to see what emerges on Thursday November 20 when the man arrested in connection with the DOB find appears at Westport District Court.
Meanwhile, Gardai are awaiting the findings of the full toxicology report to determine what killed a 21-year-old County Waterford man last week. The initial post mortem indicated Ecstasy, but the miniscule dosages involved means that DOB can’t be ruled out as a factor until the lab work is completed.
In the wake of our first report, hotpress has received anecdotal evidence of DOB – or “Snowballs” as the pills are known here – being sold as E in Cork, Waterford, Ballinasloe and Dublin. One caller claimed that a friend of his was so distressed after taking two tabs of it that he signed himself in to the capital’s St. John of God’s Hospital.
October 24’s public warning from the Department of Health aside, there’s been no official discussion of DOB’s symptoms which include:
• Progressively annoying “ghost” sensations, known as “parasthesis” in arms and legs
• Coldness of extremities
• Skin of hands, feet and ankles becoming bluish and mottled
• Muscular pain, which in extreme cases can lead to paralysis
It’s to be noted that none of these symptoms occur with LSD or E.
The bad news for the National Garda Drug Unit is that there’s another synthetic hallucinogen on its way. Selling for between £5 and £10stg a pill, 2C-i arrived in UK clubland at the start of the year and has already been linked to one fatality. Like DOB, it’s often passed off as ecstasy but is more akin to LSD in effect.
Says one small-time Dublin dealer: “I haven’t been offered it by the guy I buy from, but a few of the people I sell to have me asked me for it. If the demand’s there, you can bet your life somebody’s going to satisfy it.”