New York girl pleads responsible to promoting drug-soaked papers on-line, mailing them to prisons

A New York girl has pleaded responsible after being charged with manufacturing artificial cannabinoids and sending drug-soaked paperwork to inmates in a number of correctional amenities, federal prosecutors mentioned Tuesday. 

Maya McIntosh, 33, manufactured, distributed and possessed with intent to distribute an artificial cannabinoid referred to as MDMB-4en-PINACA, officers from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Northern District of New York mentioned in a information launch. McIntosh ordered the chemical substances to make the artificial drug and had them shipped to her house, in line with court docket paperwork, which mentioned she then made a liquid type of MDMB-4en-PINACA. 

That liquid was then sprayed and soaked into copy paper and enterprise envelopes, in line with prosecutors and court docket paperwork. McIntosh allegedly bought the sheets and envelopes on social media, and was paid by prospects  to ship them to inmates at varied New York State correctional amenities. Prosecutors say McIntosh labeled the envelopes as if they’d come from attorneys. 

The recipients of the drug-soaked papers and envelopes wouldn’t have been capable of really feel the drug’s results by means of the paper, mentioned Dr. Andrew Stolbach, a toxicologist and emergency drugs doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. MDMB-4en-PINACA doesn’t move by means of pores and skin, he mentioned, and artificial cannabinoids generally are usually made of huge molecules, making them unable to simply move by means of the pores and skin or spontaneously enter the air. 

“This is the reason individuals who use these medication smoke them, the literal warmth from a flame is used to convey the drug into an absorbable state,” Stolbach informed CBS Information. “If the medication labored by pores and skin absorption or spontaneous volatilization, folks would simply contact the drug or open the package deal to expertise them.” 

McIntosh pleaded responsible to a number of fees, together with conspiracies to fabricate, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute a managed substance, and illegal possession and use of a method of identification, the Division of Justice mentioned. 

McIntosh  faces a most time period of as much as 20 years’ imprisonment on every depend, and a most superb of $1 million on the drug counts, in addition to a superb of $250,000 on the opposite counts. She faces a supervised launch of not less than three years and as much as life, the Justice Division mentioned. 

A number of related circumstances of drug-soaked papers being delivered to prisons have been reported. In August 2024, a Chicago corrections officer was accused of attempting to convey such supplies into the Cook dinner County Jail. In 2022, a South African girl was charged with orchestrating a scheme to smuggle dozens of packages containing drug-soaked papers into Ohio prisons and sentenced to 1 yr in jail.