Talk:Designer drugs

The material from Designer drug was quite good; I only deleted it and did a redirect to this article because the latter is more through. The old article, which I shall reproduce here needs to be incorporated into the new one.Zantastik 05:37, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Designer Drugs is a dysphemism created by the DEA to refer to analogues of previously controlled substances. Creating an analogue of an illegal drug is a way to possibly create a drug with similar effects but which is legal.

Designer drugs, or drug analogues, are seemingly illegal under the additions to the legal code known as the analogue act, which prohibits the creation of any new drug that has a similar chemical structure or subjective effect as an illegal drug. This area of the law however, is extremely gray, as the definition is seen to be overly broad. In addition, the DEA itself, untill late 2004, has never prosecuted drugs which weren't explicitly illegal via an appeal to the analogue act, instead resorting to "emergancy scheduling" of the drug, a technique whereby the DEA can make any compound illegal for a period of time while its potential for abuse is worked out by the courts.