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The drug found in the University of South Alabama student who was fatally shot by a police officer in October is a research drug similar, but stronger, than LSD.

Officials announced Friday that 18-year-old

had apparently taken a tiny amount of 25I-C-NBOMe, known as 25-I before attending the BayFest music festival on Oct. 6.

Hours later, he was apparently immune to punches he received from a student whose car window he was trying to climb in. He was able to stand up after a police officer shot him.

That officer, Trevis Austin, was cleared by a grand jury Friday of any wrong-doing.

“You’re so high,” said Ashleigh Simon, clinical director of The Bridge Addiction Treatment Centers, which works with adolescents who use drugs. “You don’t feel the effects of any type of physical attack.”

Simon, who has counseled some teens who have used 25-I, said it’s being marketed – on the internet and by peers – as being similar to the hallucinogen LSD. But its effects are much more severe.

It was developed in a lab to treat depression and schizophrenia and is still being tested, she said. Dosage amounts have not been set, which makes it extremely dangerous to take recreationally.

“The grams are so hard to control,” Simon said. “You don’t know how much you're getting.”

The effects typically last 6 to 10 hours, but have been known to last 12.

25-I can be inhaled or taken in crystallized form on blotter paper.

Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said during a news conference Friday that officials believe Collar of Wetumpka took an amount equal to about two-ninth’s the size of a postage stamp.

It can cost as low as about $10 a hit, Rich said.

Rich said Collar got the 25-I from a friend of a friend who ordered it from out of the country and brought it to Mobile from Birmingham. She said that the chemical is not listed on the state’s list of controlled substances.

The side-effects are not fully known. But according to a Wikipedia page, its desired effects include euphoria, mental and physical stimulation, feelings of love and empathy, and possible life-changing spiritual experiences. It can cause confusion, out-of-control thinking, paranoia, seizures and even death.

The drug made national news in 2012 when a 21-year-old died after inhaling one drop of it at the Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans. Several festival goers went to emergency rooms as the drug was reportedly being sold on grounds, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Locally, Simon said, it’s still a new drug that is not well known.

“I’ve seen a couple of kids on it. It terrifies them,” Simon said. “It’s the kind of thing they use once and never want to use again.”