The North Dakota Board of Pharmacy has announced a public meeting on Nov. 30 at 10 a.m. at the Harvest Room of the Capitol Building in Bismarck to address proposed "Emergency Rule" changes to the North Dakota Century Code.
The changes will extend the banned chemical compounds listed in Title 19, Chapter 3, as called for Friday by the state's attorney general, Wayne Stenehjem.
This meeting follows two "cease and desist" orders issued to head shops in the state, the first to a shop in Mandan and the second to two shops in Minot, earlier in the week.
The changes listed in the legal draft place new hallucinogenic substances and new stimulant substances into Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act of the Century Code. Specifically, there will be changes to eight subclasses of synthetic cannabinoids and an expansion to the substituted phenethylamines class in the hallucinogenic substances list, and an expansion to the substituted cathinones class and two new specific substancesFluoroamphetamine and fluromethamphetamineto the stimulant substances list.
One of the new synthetic cannabinoids subclasses proposed is tetramethylcyclopropanoylindoles, the class specifically recommended by Crime Lab
forensic scientist Charlene Schweitzer in her testimony to a legislative hearing held in October addressing an alleged need for additional compounds to be banned.
Smiles, or 2C-I, which was cited as the cause of two teen deaths in Grand Forks earlier this year, is a synthetic cathinone, so will be effectively banned should the emergency rules be implemented.
The draft is considered the official draft in that it will be the one discussed at the upcoming meeting, said North Dakota Board of Pharmacy assistant executive director Mark Hardy.
"There could potentially be changes," Hardy said. "It's very unlikely, though," and will only be changed should the attorney general's office, or its Crime Lab division, call for specific changes to the draft before the meeting is held.
The legal draft for the emergency rules can be read on the North Dakota attorney general's website, (www.ag.nd.gov).