After warning of a spike in hallucinogenic drugs last year, the GBI says new cases continue to emerge throughout the state.
The latest came Saturday in Hall County involving a teenager.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD, is a drug in the same class as other psychedelics, ecstasy and heroin, and has no medical purpose, law enforcement officials said. Use of LSD and similar drugs was popular with the subculture of hippies during the late 1960s and ’70s.
Criminal cases related to the drug rose from 21 in 2014 to 137 in fiscal year 2017, which runs July 2016 through June 2017, GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We have 28 LSD cases so far in fiscal year 2018,” Miles said.
Hall County had its first LSD-related arrest of the new year when a user had to be treated for hallucinations at a local hospital, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Scott Ware said.
Tanner Lee Brown, 18, faces charges of possession with the intent to distribute LSD in connection with the overdose. He is being held without bond in the Hall County jail until his Jan. 26 hearing in Magistrate Court, Ware said.
After South Georgia high school students became sick from licking what officials believed were LSD-laced stamps in October, the Jones County Sheriff's Office put out a warning to parents.
Authorities seized 2,600 hits of hallucinogens and other synthetic drugs. Five people, including two 17-year-olds and a juvenile, were later arrested in connection with possession and intent to distribute the psychedelic drugs.
Sgt. Paul House, with the Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad in Hall County, said incidents involving LSD and psychedelic drugs occur more often around large universities, but the county reported four cases of sale or possession in 2017.
“Based on information I’ve received and training I’ve attended, there is a slight rise in incidents involving LSD,” House said.
The GBI is continuing to monitor the dangerous trend, Miles said.
