A teenager has died and 10 others are in hospital after overdosing on a legal hallucinogenic drug they had bought over the internet.
Two remain in a critical condition at a Blaine, Minnesota hospital after taking the designer drug 2 C-E, thought to be similar to Mescaline, police said.
Authorities were called to a house in Coon Rapids in the early hours of Thursday morning and discovered multiple teens and young adults in agony after taking the substance, which is also known as Europa.
Eleven people ranging in age from 16 to 21 were taken by ambulance to hospital and of those two school-aged patients remain in a critical condition.
The drug was tested by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension which confirmed it was 2 C-E, rather than 2C-I – an illegal drug one molecule away which investigators first believed had been taken.
Carol Falkowski, drug abuse strategy officer with the Minnesota Department of Human Services told the Star Tribune: ‘The danger is that a lethal dose can occur and when you’re purchasing them from these rogue websites, there’s no certainty about the type of dose you’re getting and no certainty about the purity of the substance.’
