Plenty of people sell imitation items that they claim to be such real illegal drugs as cocaine. The top motivations for doing so likely are seeking a higher profit margin, not having the real product available to sell, not knowing that the product is fake or adulterated, and hoping to reduce criminal conviction and sentencing risks if caught.

Fake drug sellers usually are nabbed through police stings, because purchasers of fake illegal drugs are unlikely to report the fake drug sales to law enforcement authorities. Of course, sellers of fake and adulterated drugs risk the violent wrath of their purchasers. Nevertheless, such sales continue.

On January 8, 2015, Virginia’s Supreme Court affirmed a conviction for selling fake crack cocaine, when the item sold actually was half of a pill that was confirmed by the chemist to have been a Schedule VI drug. Powell v. Virginia, ___ Va. ___ (Jan. 8, 2015).  How the sold pill could have been reasonably mistaken for crack cocaine sounds very suspect, to say the least.

As a side note, ironically, fake and adulterated illegal drugs can end up being more dangerous than the real drug —- depending on the composition of the fake or adulterated drug — even if the real drug in its pure form starts out as dangerous. For starters, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, opium and morphine all are natural in their unadulterated form, and can be made more dangerous by spraying chemicals to get one more high on marijuana, by adding crushed glass to cocaine to make it more shiny, and by adding dangerous cutting agents to Cocaine and heroin.

As a further aside, were I a drug user, I expect I would feel averse to using any chemically synthesized drugs, including LSD and speed.