In 1985 Michael Hovey, an organic chemist at duPont in Wilmington, Delaware cooked up in his lab a batch of 3-methylfentanyl—a narcotic that is more than 6,000-times stronger than morphine—thus ushering in the era of designer drugs. 
Hovey's drug, which belongs to a class of drugs called "synthetic heroins," had a street value of $112 million. 


After that, things started to go poorly. Getting rid of the stuff, proved to be challenging, as evidenced by his attempt to sell it to an undercover FBI agent. Later, out on bail and determined not to go back to prison, Hovey committed "suicide by police" by attacking a Delaware State Trooper with a knife. 


The story itself is darkly fascinating on its own, and dominated the news at the time. But, the darkest details of the Hovey story were never revealed, and remain largely unknown. After all, how could anyone possibly know what was going through Hovey's mind during this time? 

You'd almost have to work with the guy every day. Just like Dr. Jane Amos, Hovey's lab mate, and the former wife of my long-time friend and former colleague, Dr. Larry Wexler. He knows plenty. And, his story is extraordinary. 







Heroin, especially lethal doses of it, has been all the news for months. And, amazingly, the statistics clearly back up the headlines. It is hard to argue with the graph below. 


It is no accident that heroin overdose deaths are shooting up. And, it's not because of heroin itself, rather something quite a bit worse: fentanyl—a synthetic, and much more potent chemical cousin of heroin. This is why people are dying so often. Fentanyl is 100-times more potent than morphine, which is similar to heroin. Since fentanyl is sometimes added to heroin as a booster, it becomes obvious why overdosing is more common: a small mistake in the amount of fentanyl booster in any sample can make a 


If this sounds crazy, things have gotten crazier since.

There have been many designer drugs made in the last 80 years, but several years ago, a new one started to become popular. It is called methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), also known as "bath salts."

If the name sounds familiar, it's because it has been in the news quite a bit lately. The consumption of "bath salts" has allegedly been responsible for a small group of maniacs going around chewing on people's faces, and other assorted violent attacks.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, Miami police shot and killed a naked man who was eating the face of another naked man on the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. Had this happened a few miles further east, it could have possibly been called the South Beach Diet II. There have been at least two similar attacks--one more in Florida and one in Louisiana--all attributed to bath salts.


Note that misguided attempts to clamp down on narcotic availability in order to address the growing opioid addiction problem have succeeded only in driving addicts to heroin, while imposing terrible hardships on patients with legitimate needs