A total of 12 Wesleyan students were hospitalized last weekend due to complications from using the drug MDMA—popularly known as Molly. Following an investigation by the Middletown Police Department (MPD), four Wesleyan students were arrested on Tuesday night. Molly is a psychoactive drug that has the properties of a stimulant and a hallucinogenic and is known as a party drug.
After taking the four students into custody, MPD searched their rooms and found drugs and/or paraphernalia in each one. Two of the students were charged with intent to sell controlled substances, and all four were charged with possession. Their court date was set for March 3.
According to a February 24 press release from MPD, four of the hospitalized students were transported to Hartford Hospital for more serious care, while the remaining eight were treated at nearby Middlesex Hospital. As of Tuesday evening, 10 of the patients had been released and two remained at Hartford Hospital.
It is believed that the drugs that the students took on Saturday night were laced with a substance other than MDMA.
“This particular batch may have had a mixture of several kinds of designer drug chemicals, making the health risks unpredictable and treatment to combat the effects complex and problematic,” said Chief William McKenna of the Middletown Police Department in the press release.
According to a Wesleyan student and friend of the hospitalized students, who chose to keep his name anonymous, said the party drugs taken on Saturday night had effects completely different from those of “normal” Molly, further indicating that the drugs were laced.
“Friends of mine who took very small doses [of the drug] were still hospitalized,” he said in an email to the Orient. “Then there were kids who were fine that night and then woke up convulsing, vomiting and in some cases, not breathing, which added a whole other scary dimension to the incident.”
The investigation is still underway to identify the source of distribution and the reason for the drug’s impurity.
Jennifer Swindlehurst-Chan, a first year at Wesleyan, said the events of the weekend brought the Wesleyan community together out of concern for the friends and peers of those who were affected by the drug.
“Most people are very understanding about [the situation this past weekend], because they realize that it could’ve been them or one of their friends. There’s not usually a ton of Molly at Wesleyan, but there is definitely a drug scene,” she said in a phone interview with the Orient.
“At every school you’ll have people who do hard drugs and people who don’t. In general, Wesleyan students are accepting of people who do drugs and they’re not as ostracized.”
Bowdoin College Director of Health Services Dr. Birgit Pols cited the cause of the hospitalized students’ unusual symptoms to Molly’s unpredictable composition.
“Molly, which is often used interchangeably with MDMA, has no consistency in terms of what’s in it. The latest information from the Drug Enforcement Agency says that less than 15 to 20 percent of the Molly or MDMA that is seized has any actual MDMA in it. The main issue is that we don’t really know what’s in it.”
According to Pols and Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster, Molly has not been an issue on Bowdoin’s campus in recent years. However, Foster expressed faith in Bowdoin Peer Health and Health Services to aid Bowdoin students in avoiding issues like the events at Wesleyan.
“If students were to identify [Molly abuse] as a problem, I think that the peer educators would be a great group of people to address this within our community, along with Dr. Pols,” he said. “We haven’t had evidence that it has been a problem, but Wesleyan is a place that’s very similar to us so it’s important that we pay attention.”
Dr. Pols believes that the key to preventing an event like this is to eliminate a market for this kind of product.
“I’d like to help folks find better ways to enjoy themselves—better ways to stay safe and healthy that do not involve these harmful and potentially life-threatening drugs,” she said. “I’d rather that every Bowdoin student understood all the risks associated with this, and realized that the benefits, if there are any, just are not worth it.”