LSD lands sporty lad in wheelchair

Photo: Corbis / Scanpix

Last week, extraordinary indeed was a criminal case settled at Harju County Court.

On the face of it, the crime committed by the youth from a decent Central Estonian family was the usual kind – possession of drugs in large quantities. Still, for the Northern district prosecutor’s office handling hundreds of drug cases a year, this one sharply stands out.  

Firstly – a part was played by the synthetic stuff called LSD, a drug rare in police practice. Secondly – within the selfsame case, criminal turned into victim likely to be wheelchaired for life.

«Quite a textbook case,» said deputy prosecutor Mariana London. What she means is the way the habit goes. The guy kicked off with cannabis, arrived at hallucinogens via internet and, as reality hit having the lad hospitalised with broken spine, strong methamphetamine was discovered in his dorm room by investigators.  

Till that time, the 2nd course student at a Tallinn university was rather known as the sporty type of guy. The kind that won medals.  And employed stably at a security company. Coming from a close-knit family of parents and a sister.

Now, in wheelchair and in parents’ home, life looks like quite a challenge. So what was it that really happened, this year on January 17th, in the evening?

The lad just up and decided to smoke some cannabis, in his room on Saturday night. To boost the effect, two LSD-saturated «stamps» were stuck under tongue. «The mixture did it,» suggests Ms London.

But let us hear from the main hero. His police interrogation minutes thus read: «The result of that was that felt some demons were after me and I had to flee them. I did not see the demons, just had the feeling. I had to escape them and therefore jumped out the window. Also, out of the window I threw the cannabis pipe and the wallet. I know not why.»

At 10:43 pm, ambulance was called for the young man unable to move and lying on the asphalt. The drop from 5th floor broke the spine. From that moment till today, the young man sturdy and strong has not taken a step on his own feet.

Turns out, the sporty security man had been on drugs for half year. Since the fall of 2014, he admitted, the habit was having hallucinogens once or twice a week.

For the virtual money – Bitcoins – the LSD stamps are available on the Internet. Which was the source in our story.

In the room, investigators discovered ten stamps with LSD and 48 with NBOMe. The lad said he had managed to order a total of 120 of these: twenty with LSD, and 100 with NBOMe. If that be true, he had consumed half of them.

On top of that, they unearthed 1.24 grams of marijuana. That would have sufficed for the high of some dozen people – in the eyes of law, a large amount.

Therefore, criminal punishment was inevitable as the law will not allow crimes in the first degree to be dropped for any reason.

Sentenced with the least available conditional imprisonment of one year, the lad will need to cover the €600 spent on court procedures. Back with his parents, he sits faced with drawn-out rehabilitation. «He says it only now dawned on him how bad the drugs may be on a person,» said deputy prosecutor Ms London.