Spring pot bust yields pound of ‘businessman’s LSD’
By Dan Nienaber
Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO — Drug investigators working a marijuana sting involving three Minnesota State University students allegedly found more than just pot when they searched their apartment near campus in May.

One of the students, 20-year-old Daniel Jonathan Uner, was charged last week with felony second-degree drug possession for allegedly having about a pound of powder DMT, a powerful hallucinogenic. Uner is no longer a student at the university, but his address is still listed as being the apartment in the 1800 block of Monks Avenue, the complaint said.

Uner’s apartment was searched after an informant and an investigator with the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task had bought small amounts of marijuana from two other students living at the apartment in April and May. Only one of those men is still listed as a student at the university, but neither is being named because charges haven’t been filed against them.

When investigators went in to search the apartment, Uner and the other two men were there. Each was searched and asked to identify his room in the apartment before being told to leave until the search was completed, the criminal complaint said. A fourth roommate was not home.

More bags of marijuana and two marijuana plants were found in the room of one of the men, the complaint said. Baggies of marijuana also were allegedly found in Uner’s room.

A gallon-sized bag of a brown powdery substance that was found in Uner’s closet had to be sent to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab to be identified. Investigators later learned it contained 438 grams, or nearly one pound, of DMT.

The drug is commonly found in plants, but is difficult to extract. It is usually smoked or ingested to create an hour-long high that includes intense hallucinations, according to information provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Its use as a recreational drug is relatively recent and disturbing development,” said a DEA news release that was issued in January 2009. “Some street names include ‘45-minute psychosis,’ ‘businessman’s LSD,’ ‘businessman’s special’ and ‘fantasia.’”

The release was for what was described as a “groundbreaking seizure” of DMT. New Jersey state troopers stopped a suspected drunken driver and found about one and one-half pounds of the drug, which was then believed to be the first distribution-sized package of processed DMT. The release also said the drug is becoming popular in clubs in large east coast cities, where it sells for about $200 per gram.

Mankato investigators also found several pans with a brown residue in Uner’s dresser, the complaint said. “A jug of lye beads and a spoon containing brown residue” were also found in his room, the complaint said.

Three freshman at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., were arrested last month after investigators there found what they believed was a methamphetamine manufacturing operation in their dorm room, according to news reports there. Manufacturing DMT can be a toxic process, so other students were tested for toxins.

Uner is charged with possessing the drug, not manufacturing it. Task force investigators could not be reached by The Free Press, so it’s not clear why prosecutors waited until now to file the charge against Uner. It often takes several weeks to get results from tests completed by at the BCA lab.

Uner is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Dec. 6.

zubidlo: If you get caught with cut cocaine, on what do you get charged ? On % of pure cocaine or on cocaine mixture ? I know this is not the same as MHRB/DMT but I'm pretty sure DEA likes to think that way.

The loophole we all rely on is that MHRB is sold to us, and we buy it, ostensibly as textile dye. If people are beginning to get charged with possession of MHRB it is setting a new and very troubling precedent

Greetings All,

Sorry you're orders are late, this is due to a load of problems we didn't expect.

For those of you buying mimosa, we had 15kg seized by customs, and we think they have put our wholesaler on a watch list, thus stopping his parcels coming into the UK. However we are now redirecting them via another place in the EU, in the hope that we can resume business in a week or so. In the aftermath of the Home Office's 'anti DMT crusade' we are being accused of importing illegal drugs into the country, which is total bollocks (you know that as well as I do), and we've had to respond to a 'notice of seizure'. We got off lightly, because we know of two other sellers who have been arrested, detained, raided and bailed. Ultimately I think we'll win this because mimosa hostilis is not illegal, but it won't stop the bastards from being overzealous. Wish us luck.

If he gets a good lawyer he might get the charges dropped on dmt possession. I hope so because that totally sucks. Fuck the drug war. Sounds to me like he just had plant material which is not in itself a crime.

Fuck this war. Fuck anyone that won't get off their couch and vote to end it. Fuck anyone that supports this war.

If he was hustling a pound (a pound!?) of dmt then yes hes an idiot. I completely agree how utterly stupid it is to sell dmt. It really pisses me off whenever I hear stories about people doing it. Its going to ruin it for everyone who is responsible.

Still shouldn't make someone a criminal though.