Last updated : November 18, 2024
About two weeks ago, a high school student’s arrival at Northside Hospital in Forsythe prompted a call to the Georgia Poison Center. When the youth arrived, he told medical personnel he had taken a drug known as “N-Bomb.”
This substance, which is also referred to as “Legal LSD,” is among the new generation of synthetic drugs that are widely available for purchase on the Internet and perhaps even at some retail locations. With good reason, the emergence of N-Bomb has prompted the poison center to issue a warning to young adults and parents about the risks involved with taking this particular drug.
According to Dr. Gaylord Lopez, Director of the Georgia Poison Center, the youth who sought medical attention at the Forsythe hospital after taking N-Bomb did not experience the effects commonly associated with traditional LSD. Instead, the teen reported more toxic effects such as hallucinations, rapid increase in body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. The boy further stated to doctors that he took the drug so that he could try it out prior to his prom to see if it was something that might be worth sharing with his friends.
The teen was then treated and released from the hospital, and with any luck at all, the boy’s emergency room visit will be enough to deter him from using N-Bomb in the future, much less distributing it to friends.
Unfortunately, that is just one case among many, and some people who opted to give this new synthetic drug a try do not survive the experience long enough to learn such a valuable lesson. The Drug Enforcement Administration reports that drugs like N-Bomb, which is also known by its chemical designation, NBOme, has already been connected to 20 user fatalities.
Those who have lived to tell of their user experiences have taken to websites like YouTube to encourage those who might consider using N-Bomb or similar types of substances to think twice before experimenting. One person who shared their experience told YouTube audiences they risk psychological effects that linger long after the high subsides. Another told viewers he thought he was dying at one point after taking N-Bomb, stating that he was unable to see clearly or understand anything that was happening around him.
“The complete, entire world around me melted away and nothing was recognizable,” he said.
Lopez said those who use N-Bomb could expect similar unpredictable and undesirable results, and that unpredictability is what makes this substance so dangerous.
“You don’t know what you’re going to get,” Lopez said.
For parents like Linda Douglas, the emergence of N-Bomb gives families a whole new reason to worry about their kids, especially if they have teenagers at home. Douglas expressed frustration that this drug represents yet another dangerous substance that youths can obtain relatively easily, much like prescription drugs, and said it’s so worrisome because a lot of young people will be “stupid enough to try it.”
The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids,, a national organization working to educate parents and reduce drug use among adolescents, explained that N-Bomb consists of a trio of NBOme compounds (25I-NBOMe, 25C-NBOMe, and 25B-NBOMe Schedule I). These substances come in powder or liquid form, added to edible products for ingestion or as a small bit of paper that has been soaked in the substance.
They are known to cause kidney damage in users, and the organization further warns using these drugs may also adversely affect a user’s mental health.
