MELBOURNE, Fla. — Armed with heavy-duty firepower, federal agents and Brevard County sheriff's deputies shut down a manufacturing facility they said was distributing Cloud 9 incense and K-2 bath salts.
Channel 9's Kevin Oliver watched Wednesday as investigators cleaned out the operation on Dusa Drive in Melbourne.
“They had their guns drawn,” said Tim Reed, who works at a neighboring business. “They had their shotguns; they had their assault rifles. They were ready for trouble."
Cloud 9 is touted as an aroma therapy blend and can be purchased legally as incense for $34.99. In fact, Oliver was able to purchase pack of Cloud 9 at a legitimate smoke shop a few blocks away from the raid while the sweep was still going on. But investigators said people are using the mix to get high.
The drug is also known as Super Coke, and it’s similar to the bath salts investigators speculated a Miami man had taken before he violently chewed a homeless man’s face off.
People working in neighboring businesses said they've been suspicious of the operation for months, saying workers were dropped off and picked up in the industrial complex in limousines.
During the raid, several people were arrested, but federal agencies declined to provide details about the seizures or the names of the suspects taken into custody.
“Some of my friends have been smoking this stuff, and I tell you, it's got to be killing their brains,” said Reed. “God, it makes them crazy."
Cloud 9 is one of the many names for the psychoactive drug MDPV, a stimulant that has been reported to produce effects similar to those of cocaine, such as rapid heart-beat, grinding teeth and severe paranoia.
In October, the Drug Enforcement Agency issued a temporary one-year ban on MDPV nationwide. Florida and Louisiana were the only two states to already have a ban in place at the time.
According to Oliver, Cloud 9 packets are sold openly on the street. Agents have to either prove what's in the packages is illegal or prove that they are being manufactured with the knowledge that they will be used illegally, which makes it more complicated than finding a marijuana growing house or a meth lab.
“When the wind is blowing right, we can smell the stuff right up to our shop,” said Reed. “Clearly, whatever they were making was raspberries, something with raspberry flavor, because you could smell the raspberry big time."
Reed said the windows at the business were blacked out and workers were rarely seen outside except when they were combining ingredients in cement mixers behind the building.
“They had cement mixers out back, and they’d be out there with those things running, and they would be spraying something in there on it,” said Reed.
Agents said the legislature has had a hard time keeping up with the operations. As soon as lawmakers outlaw some of the substances, the manufacturers change ingredients or the compound and keep selling them, agents said.
The use of synthetic drugs is a growing problem nationwide. WFTV learned that more than 11 percent of all high school seniors have used the drug at least once. That compares to about 23 percent of seniors who've smoked marijuana at least once and 25 percent who've used alcohol in the past month.
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