Senate passes bill to improve synthetic drug prosecutions

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The state Senate passed a bill Tuesday meant in part to prevent prosecutors from having to enlist pharmacologists to attest to the psychological effects of synthetic drugs in cases against sellers of the banned substances.

Senate Bill 325 is an attempt at preventing makers of illegal synthetic drugs from altering the chemical formulas of their products in a way that circumvents current prohibitions. To that end, the bill would outlaw 16 basic chemical compounds and the various methods that can be used to alter those compounds’ chemical structure without taking away their intoxicating effects. It also would add about 150 substances to the list of synthetic drugs the state bans.

The sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, said the legislation is meant to fulfill the intentions behind a 2011 law that explicitly banned 10 synthetic substances. Even though the legislation prohibited the sale or use of chemically similar analogs of those explicitly outlawed drugs, prosecutors have found the ban difficult to enforce.

“We thought we had hit right on last session by drafting it to deal with synthetic drugs or the analogs of those drugs,” Harsdorf said. “But we didn’t get it quite right.”

Part of the difficulty with the 2011 law, state lawyers have said, is that it forced prosecutors who wanted to prove something was an illegal analog to hire experts who could attest to the psychological effects of a particular substance. Those experts could prove expensive, making counties reluctant to compensate them for testifying.

To become law, SB 325 still must be passed by the state Assembly and signed by Gov. Scott Walker.

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