U.S. Supreme Court ruling could make it harder to prosecute synthetic drug dealers in Indiana

(June 22, 2015) — On the same day one of the men who gave her son a deadly synthetic drug pleaded guilty Jeanine Motsay is gearing up for another fight to keep synthetic drug dealers like Jordan Adamowicz behind bars.

“There’s no taking back that the person that made the drug identified that they made it with powder of 25i nbome and mixing it with ever clear,” said Motsay.

That lethal combination took 16-year-old Sam Motsay’s life last year. Now the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Virginia synthetic drug dealer’s conviction after ruling prosecutors must prove he knew the chemical compound he dealt and knew it was illegal to distribute them.  Indiana Senator Jim Merritt says that decision empowers the dealers and could be a blow to Indiana laws aimed at keeping synthetic drugs off the streets.

“A retailer needs to know what they’re selling and needs to know what the world view is and we need to protect our citizens and the supreme court of the united states is not doing that now,” said Merritt, who has led the fight to keep synthetic drugs out of Hoosier’s hands, especially children.

“The United State’s Supreme Court ruling does not protect kids, it protects retailers and I’m for protecting kids.”

Jeanine Motsay has already loss her son and now the fight to keep other kids from doing synthetic drugs has gotten harder.

“This just gives those criminal activities more power to move forward and threaten our youth that really concerns me about what that means to the future generation,” said Motsay.

Merritt says the next step will be to put synthetic drugs in the same category as normal drugs so the penalties for distributing those substances are the same.