I’ve noticed that news travels slowly in the South. Maybe it’s the history of cool, early evening breezes on a front porch, where neighbors would catch up with the news of the day, or maybe it’s just the culture. Everything is slower here, and I’ve come to expect it and actually I’ve come to like it. A little banter before a business transaction never hurt anyone, and in fact it helps keep us human.
Well, it’s not often that my husband says he hasn’t heard about a drug. He is a walking encyclopedia of drugs – their generic and brand names and what they say they can do for one of his patients. I used to quiz the Bride on a shoe box full of flash cards filled with a pharmocopia of drug information that she had to commit to memory in order to practice the art of medicine. Brand and generic name on one side, its prescribed use and complications on the other.
But my brilliant hubby never heard of “Molly.” We just figured this illegal drug hadn’t made its way to our sleepy central VA town. Two people died over the past weekend at a concert in NY, and one died in Boston from a new “club/designer/street” drug named Molly. When we heard this news, I said it must be a type of Ecstasy, and I guessed right.
“Molly is classified as a Schedule One drug by the federal government. That means they believe it has “no currently accepted medical use” and “a high potential for abuse.” So now we know it a very pure form of the club drug MDMA , and when taken with other drugs, including alcohol, it can be fatal. http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/mdma-ecstasy-abuse/what-does-mdma-do-to-brain
And yesterday, we found out that one of our own, Shelley Goldsmith a 19 year old second year UVA student, may have died last Saturday after taking Molly at a rave club in DC.
“Shelley Goldsmith had a full scholarship to U.Va., where she was beginning her sophomore year. She was a Jefferson Scholar and a member of the Alpha Phi sorority. Students remembered their friend by painting the Beta Bridge near campus with the message “Shelley our Shooting Star.”
Her autopsy results haven’t been published yet, but statements from her friends, the people who accompanied her by bus to DC, are becoming public. It may take awhile, even in this digital age, for news to travel, but I hope our kids are listening. My condolences and prayers to her family.
Picture from her sorority’s tumblr page
MountainMornings 
I haven’t heard of this either and it’s very scary. I do worry about my daughter and her adventures.