‘Molly’: no friend to Nassau teens
If your teenage children are talking about “Molly,” they’re probably not discussing a new friend at school, but rather an amphetamine that is making its way through the Nassau County drug culture and is particularly popular among teens and young adults, police sources say.
“We have seen a huge upswing in the use of molly in the past year, particularly in every club and bar that allows kids younger than 21 to come in,” said Sgt. Brian Sweeney, a member of the Nassau County Police Department’s Narcotics Unit. “This has probably been going on for longer, but we don’t see it until it starts to really affect people. Molly, along with other forms of MDMA” — the chemical acronym for what is known generally as “ecstasy” — “has become the new gateway drug for teens in our county.
“The kids don’t know what they’re getting into,” Sweeny added. “They hear rumors that the drug is pure and can even be healthy. They take it and get a real high, but three days later they’re sitting in their rooms, staring at the wall and very depressed. They don’t know what it’s doing to their body.”
Molly is the street name for the powdered or crystallized form of MDMA, which has been popular at music festivals this year, CNN reported recently on a program about the drug scene around the nation.
References to molly can be found in a number of hip-hop songs, such as Kanye West’s “Mercy,” in which he sings, “Something about Mary, she’s gone off that Molly.”
According to the on-line Urban Dictionary, molly, short for molecule, is purer than ecstasy, which is generally laced with other ingredients, such as caffeine. According to Pax Prentiss, co-founder and CEO of the Passages rehabilitation centers in Southern California, molly users tend to be ages 16 to 24.
Sweeny agrees. “Most of the 84 arrests we have made for using molly, MDMA and ecstasy since 2012 have been teens and young adults,” he said. “Those numbers are low, just the tip of the iceberg. We don’t actually know that the drug involved was MDMA until the tests come back from the crime lab. By then the case has been classified as unknown drugs, and it is never reclassified to show that it was molly.”
The website for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency defines MDMA is a Schedule I controlled substance, which means it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted use in medical treatment. The DEA notes that MDMA can cause confusion, anxiety, depression, paranoia, sleep problems and drug craving. It can also cause muscle tension, tremors, involuntary teeth clenching, muscle cramps, nausea, faintness, chills, sweating and blurred vision.
“High doses of MDMA can interfere with the ability to regulate body temperature, resulting in a sharp increase in body temperature (hyperthermia), leading to liver, kidney and cardiovascular failure,” the website states. “Severe dehydration can result from the combination of the drug’s effects and the crowded and hot conditions in which the drug is often taken.”
While fewer than 4 percent of emergency room visits nationally in 2009 were due to MDMA use, the national Drug Abuse Warning Network found that from 2004 to 2009, there was a 123 percent increase in the number of emergency room visits involving MDMA — taken alone, or in combination with pharmaceuticals, alcohol or both.
Sweeny said that parents of teenagers need to be aware of the danger signs. “If a parent finds gel caps that are usually used to make vitamin mixes in their kid’s room and there is a brownish-tinted powder in the capsules, then it is time to ask questions,” he said. “If the kid is constantly drinking water, one bottle after another, that may be because they have to cool down, and the drug makes their temperature to go up to 104 degrees, so the body craves cold water.”
Police and drug experts have an explicit message for those who seek to experiment with the drug: Don’t mess with molly.
Fifth young adults learned that lesson the hard way last Oct. 28, when they were rushed from the Nassau Coliseum’s “Haunted Coliseum” program to local hospitals because, police said, many of them used molly in combination with alcohol.
“The name makes the drug sound benign, like the girl next door,” Sweeny said. “That is far from the truth. This is a very dangerous drug, and it is making inroads among teens all over the county.”
