Nashville and Frankfort-Tennessee and Kentucky authorities are clamping down on rapidly growing sales of what is considered a dangerous recreational drug being marketed as a fertilizer under the labels of Molly’s Plant Food or Happy Plant Food. They are warning users that they risk severe physical and psychological side effects. “This so called plant food is nothing short of a very dangerous drug,” warned Dr. Sullivan Smith, an emergency services medical director, who warned the Tennessee legislature that “calling it a plant food is just a way around the law, which would place this drug into the same classification as heroin and LSD.” Joining with the state department of agriculture, the Tennessee attorney general’s office has carried out a statewide seizure of Molly’s Plant Food. One product sample that was seized from a defendant’s business and put under analysis contained 3.75 percent nitrogen, making it a fertilizer and thus subject to regulation by the department of agriculture. In addition, the attorney general’s office has filed suit, asking for a temporary restraining order to stop the defendants from selling the product. Atty. Gen. Bob Cooper added, “We are glad that current law gives us a way to get this product off the shelves while the legislature considers stiffer penalties.” In Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear late last month signed into law legislation banning such new synthetic drugs. “This bill gives law enforcement another tool to protect Kentuckians from substances that are engineered specifically to mimic illegal dangerous drugs and allows Kentucky to keep pace with an ever-changing drug market,” Gov. Beshear declared. Under this new law, manufacturing or trafficking in the substance is a Class A misdemeanor and possession is a Class B misdemeanor. In addition, a possible patent-infringement suit is under consideration by owners of Happy Plant, a legitimate business that produces a popular nutrient-rich soil amendment from humate mined in central Utah. Happy Plant’s Dan Turrel told Green Markets, “Not only does it infringe on our registered trademark; it is potentially damaging to our good name … as well as all small package plant food products.” Turrel described the illegal substance as “a white powder that’s put into capsules and dissolved in a liquid drink (where) ours is an organic humate-based product loaded with micro-nutrients.” He added that the illegal drug is probably coming from the UK.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain