Indonesian law enforcement have been known to exaggerate some claims when it comes to narcotics in order to whip up public support to fight Indonesia’s “drug emergency” (e.g. National Narcotics Agency Chief Budi Waseso warning of dealers sneaking drugs into kindergarteners’ snacks to get them hooked – an idea that doesn’t really make sense on any level).
So take with a grain of salt (or some other white powdery substance) the Depok Police’s recent claim that they found Superman-logo-shaped ecstasy that can turn people into cannibals.
Depok Police said they arrested a drug dealer at a rented house in the satellite city’s Pondok Petir village on Sunday afternoon.
“Based on information from residents, the house occupied by the suspect is often used as a place of drug transactions,” Depok Police Narcotics Unit Chief Putu Kholis said yesterday as quoted by Tempo.
According to Putu, the suspect was arrested with 1.67 grams of methamphetamines, 7 ecstasy tablets bearing the “S” logo of Superman, and one packet of ecstasy with an Omega logo. He said the narcotics were found stashed in a speaker and had originally been purchased in Tamansari, West Jakarta.
So what about the cannibal claim? Well, according to Putu, laboratory testing found the superman ecstasy contained methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), popularly known in the US as bath salts. Putu said MPDV could make people feel more relaxed, but it could also cause them to eat human flesh.
Putu was likely referencing the infamous Miami cannibal attack of 2012, in which a naked man gruesomely attacked a homeless person and ate some of the flesh off of his face. Police sources speculated bath salts as a cause for the attacker’s inexplicable behavior, experts have doubted this and toxicology reports did not identify MDPV in the attacker’s system.
MDPV is known to act as a stimulant and has been reported to produce effects similar to those of cocaine and amphetamines though there is only anecdotal evidence it causes psychosis.
Putu said the dealer would be charged under Indonesia’s strict narcotics laws and would face a minimum of 4 years in jail.
