The Facebook post promised a “12-hour non-stop ride with Mother Nature.” It mentioned a date for members of the FB group to meet in the “organic dark forest for a galactic experience with full night music,” which in reality was a farmhouse on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.
Cyber investigators scouring the social media to verify growing rumours about secret drug parties in Kerala suspected they were on the scent of an “illegal rave.”
Arul R.B. Krishna, DCP, Thiruvananthapuram, launched an undercover operation in March, which on Friday resulted in the seizure of an unprecedented number of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) blotters (100) and arrest of three students in their 20s in the district.
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Plain-clothes officers had infiltrated the FB group, which also had a WhatsApp extension. Over several months, they won the confidence of the group by pretending to subscribe to its sub-culture of drugs and music. They soon learned that the leaders of the FB group were in possession of the hallucinogenic in the form of stamp-shaped absorbent paper that could be ingested sublingually.
₹600 each
Investigators used their cooperators in the illegal marijuana trade, themselves members of the closed FB group, to persuade the students to sell them a “stamp.”
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The arrests followed. The suspects had sourced 100 LSD stamps for ₹600 each from a peddler in Madiwala in Bengaluru. They hoped to hawk it at the “rave” party for ₹1,200.
The police say that the seizure confirms rumours that synthetic drugs cooked in backyard laboratories in Goa are finding users in Kerala. Synthetic drugs are easily concealable, more potent, less expensive and likely to supplant the non-addictive marijuana. Investigators say micro doses of LSD are cheaper than branded liquor. They offer a more “enduring high.” Though non-addictive, LSD’s mind altering nature could endanger unassisted users.