DeWine steps up attack on synthetic drugs

COLUMBUS — Two years ago, state lawmakers passed a ban on bath salts and other synthetic drugs being sold without limits from convenience store counters.

They tackled the issue late last session with more law changes aimed at stopping chemists from altering the molecular composition of synthetic drugs to skirt legal limits.

Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine said the latter, passed in December as House Bill 334, has helped law enforcement “to get a lot of these drugs off the streets, take them out of gas stations and other places that are selling them.”

But companies, DeWine said, continue to find ways around the law as written, via slight alterations in the chemical makeup of synthetic marijuana and other drugs sold under names like “Bizarro” and “Vanilla Sky.”

Today, he asked the state pharmacy board to further combat the problem by moving new rules making the substances illegal. The panel likely will have to continue to change such rules in the future, as the state tries to keep pace with company chemists.