I recall a news item about this very recently. The drug is being smuggled into this country as bath salts and many other “products”.
Pretty nasty unpredictable reactions.
You don’t have to smuggle it. It’s not listed, or “scheduled” in the USA, so you can go to a lab and order 10 kilos of it, have it shipped to a state that has not made it illegal. As long as all the documentation says “research chemical” and “not for human consumption”, there is not much the cops can do.
You used to be able to do this with 5-methoxy diisopropyltryptamine (Foxy Methoxy) but it got put on the list. Up until that point, you could order it online.
The Bath Salts people have been aggressively marketing it, and their little packets make distribution easy. Eventually it will be Emergency Scheduled then permanently scheduled, then it will be as hard to get as marijuana or heroin.
Oops, I was wrong, just looked at DEA and they DID emergency schedule it Oct 21, 2011. It’s now a Federal Schedule 1 drug like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. They issues a one-year ban and put it under study.