'Danger notice' sent on drug chemical

ALLENDALE, Mich. (WOOD) - A chemical used in recreational designer drugs is on the legislative fast track to be made illegal in Michigan.
 
The Michigan Department of Community Health issued an "imminent danger" notice regarding phenethylamine. The department said 19 people across the state have gone to emergency rooms after taking drugs with phenethylamine in it. 
 
Instead of a bath salt, pill or powder, phenethylamine is a liquid that kids drink. It's more commonly referred to on the street as N-BOM, 25-I, pandora and vortex. Kids buy it off the Internet and then take it to parties or raves.
 
"I would never try it and I don't know what would drive kids to try it, but something is," said Grand Valley State University freshman Andy Harris.
 
No one in Michigan has died from using the drug, but it's blamed for five deaths around the US.
 
Among the 19 cases cited by the MDCH are those of four GVSU students who became violent and were hallucinating when police arrived at a dorm room on the Allendale campus in January.
 
Target 8 obtained the police report that says a resident advisor reported seeing a male with no clothes on throwing things and refusing to open the door. Once authorities got inside the dorm room, the students resisted arrest. One student's body was covered with cuts and blood. There was also blood on the campus room walls and mirrors.
 
That type of behavior is typical for users of this synthetic drug.
 
The four young men, ages 18 and 19, were taken to the emergency room at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids. Three of the young men were convulsing, according to the Regional Poison Control Center, and one suffered kidney failure.
 
The state is using a new system put into place in June to combat ingredients in designer drugs like K2 and spice -- which are sold under a wide variety of names and packages --  to crack down on phenethylamine.

GVSU officials said they continue to warn students about dangerous drugs and designer drugs in particular.

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Children's Hospital of Michigan Regional Poison Control Center: 1.800.222.1222