Saturday, April 25, 2015

Drugs for sex, and all that

Normally, I wouldn't take much interest in the case of the delightfully-named Fred Pagan (also here), the chief personal aide to Mississippi Senator Thad Chochran -- but a rumbling in my gut tells me that this incident may turn into something of wider interest. My gut instinct has, of course, been wrong before.

Authorities intercepted a package from China containing a drug called GBL, which I did not previously know about. It's an industrial solvent which apparently has properties similar to GHB, the date rape drug (of which I had heard). Some aficionados use this substance as a general-purpose intoxicant, like alcohol. I wouldn't know much about such things, since the only things that make me high are Jesus and the flag and my right to bear arms.

At any rate, the package was addressed to Fred Pagan (who earns $80,000 a year as Cochran's aide). So the feds showed up at his pad and found a nice quantity of meth. Some news accounts give the impression that the meth came from China, which would have been very weird, but the actual origin point was California, which makes a lot more sense. (Meth is to the Mohave as oil is to Kuwait.)

According to the all-too-brief Statement of Facts from Homeland Security officer Mark Waugh, Pagan planned to distribute the GBL and the meth in DC "in exchange for sexual favors."

That's the phrase which arouses my interest. It seems to hint at something rather large. But, as noted above, my instinct may be wrong.

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