The Firefly Music Festival is a four day long, open-air music festival that takes place in Dover, Delaware. With performers like Snoop Dog, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Modest Mouse drawing thousands of people from all over the country, it can be expected that there is going to be some shenanigans. But in this instance, the trouble involves two young men from Michigan.
31-year-old Daniel Wood of Jackson, and 39-year-old Dion McPherson of Ann Arbor, were arrested by Dover Police after they sold what they said was MDMA to an undercover officer. MDMA, also called Molly or Ecstasy, is a club drug that is used for its stimulant effects, along with it’s hallucinogenic qualities. It has been known to cause occasional spikes in body temperatures in users, resulting in liver, kidney and heart failure, and sometimes results in death.
But the substance sold to the undercover officers was in fact something worse that MDMA. It contained mephedrone, which is also known as “bath salts”. Bath salts are the common name for a group of psychoactive “designer drugs” associated with violent behaviors and suicides. According to WebMD, side effects may include agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, chest pain, increased pulse rate, high blood pressure, and suicidal thoughts.
Officers discovered large quantity of illegal drugs
Upon arrest, officers discovered that the two men had a substantial quantity of illegal drugs in their possession. Arrest records show that the two men had between them 58.8 grams of psilocybin mushrooms (illegal hallucinogenic mushrooms), 225 doses of LSD, 44.1 grams of mephedrone (also sometimes called bath salts), and 30.5 grams of marijuana. In addition, officers also confiscated almost $3,400 in cash.
McPherson and Wood have been charged with second degree conspiracy and a number of illegal drug possession charges. They are currently being held at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in New Castle County, where they have been granted $100,000 cash bonds.
While parts of Michigan are certainly more progressive in their approach to marijuana in recent years, this does not stretch to include other illegal drugs like “mushrooms”, LSD and Ecstasy. Anyone arrested here in Michigan for possession of these drugs is likely to face a similar fate to Wood and McPherson, all the way up in Delaware.