Synthetic Drugs Are Killing Kids
BURNETT: Tonight's money and power, the new drug war. Synthetic designer drugs known as Spice, K2 and bath salts have exploded in popularity and they are killing teens, including 18-year-old Christian Bjork (ph) and 17-year-old Elijah Sty (ph). We're going to learn much more about them in tonight's special deadly high at 9:00 Eastern. But for years, little was known about these drugs, except for this, they were designed to imitate the highs of drugs like LSD and meth. Now, they are part of a drug crisis facing America. Drew Griffin is OUTFRONT.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is a new drug war underway. At Los Angeles International, the new battle is trying to intercept synthetic designer drugs. Customs inspectors open and test suspicious packages looking for what's not listed on custom forms. This package claims to contain plastic. It turns out to be bath salts, a chemically produced synthetic stimulant that mimics meth.</s>TREVOR RUDALAVIGE, DEA: It's methylone, which is a scheduled controlled substance. So, this can be treated as a scheduled controlled substance.</s>GRIFFIN: And it came from the country that according to the DEA, is manufacturing and shipping most of the synthetic drugs worldwide.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From China, mainland China.</s>GRIFFIN: It's no secret to law enforcement where it comes from and it's no secret to drug dealers seeking to become entrepreneurs in the new world of designer drugs.</s>CHARLES CARLTON, FOUNDER, MOTION RESOURCE: Any laboratory in China, if you send them what's called a cast number, which is it is just a number that's designated to every chemical substance that exists. As long as it's not scheduled, they will manufacture it for you specifically. It's called a custom synthesis, and ship it to you.</s>GRIFFIN: Charles Carlton, who sold the drugs that killed Elijah Sty and Christian Bjork said he used the Internet to buy much of his supply in bulk from China.</s>CARLTON: There are a lot of brokers as well. Like he will order from a guy in Poland and receive a package from China.</s>GRIFFIN (on camera): Is it all labeled as research chemical, not for human consumption you get it?</s>CARLTON: For the most part, yes.</s>GRIFFIN (voice-over): Shanghai, China's largest city. Its towering waterfront and bustling streets, it is home to chemical companies churning out synthetics or pure poison. In the emerging global market of the synthetic drug world, the Shanghai region is the epicenter.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come in.</s>GRIFFIN: This is the office of a synthetic drug dealer. Undercover video taken by a French documentary filmmaker of a bragging drug entrepreneur claiming to supply the world with his manufactured highs.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stuff PV-8, sells popular in Russian market. People take it in mouth or in nose and it's OK.</s>BURNETT: I mean, it's pretty incredible. And that dealer you were talking to, he looked like the guy next door, literally. How is this happening so blatantly?</s>GRIFFIN: This stuff is being churned out in laboratories this is not cartels. This is not drug gangs. These are laboratories mostly in China, mostly around Shanghai, who have turned this into a business. They're selling this stuff in bulk, like you see there. This is a French reporter posing as a buyer, going to see her source, her, quote-unquote, "source" just like you would go buy plastic. That's how it's coming in.</s>BURNETT: I mean, it is pretty incredible. What is the U.S. government doing about it?</s>GRIFFIN: They are in dialogue with the Chinese government. We are told from U.S. sources that China is cracking down. China refuses to discuss anything with us as to what they are doing. The U.S. government is kind of just trying to nudge China along on this to get them with the rest of the world on stopping this. Clearly if you have got factories churning this out, you know where it is and you can stop it.</s>BURNETT: All right. Drew Griffin, thank you very much. Stunning report. And you can see Drew's entire special report tonight, "Deadly High: How Synthetic Drugs Are Killing Kids" tonight. It is at 9:00 Eastern, right here on CNN. And next, a powerful wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi detained, with her child. Baghdadi wants that child back. Will this be the big break U.S. intelligence is looking for? And as escape plans go, this one was not the best. Jeanne Moos on the guy who stole a BMW and tried to escape via skate board.