Comment on FR Doc # 2012-25509

Methylone seems to be a dangerous drug. The important word in that sentence is “seems.” The event in Florida with a man eating a person’s face because he was “high on bath salts” (later confirmed to be methylone) is a shocking and surprising news story. But policy cannot be made on singular, albeit appalling, news events. The role of the DEA along with the FDA should be to protect the American people from dangerous drugs, but allow drugs with medical purposes to be allowed to the public. It seems that the correct way to follow these procedures is not to issue “emergency” rulemakings based on recent hyperbolic news events about Florida turning into a state of zombies based on one demented person. Methylone could very well have no medical use and should therefore correctly be classified as a Schedule I drug, but the full extent of medical tests have not been performed. Methylone is closely related to MDMA. MDMA, extasy, and its subsidiaries have long been shown to have some type of correlation in therapy with a much quicker solution to long running anti-depression drugs. Doctors have tried creating a drug close to MDMA that does not result in the “high” that it is used on the street for, but still has the immediate anti-depression response. Perhaps methylone could be one of the next steps to finding that drug. It is likely that methylone would prove to have no medical use; however, that decision should be made by the medical community, and not the Dawn of the Dead community.