一家中国化学公司以及一场"浴用盐"传染病

There were times a few years back when the emergency room at SUNY Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse looked like a scene from a zombie movie. Dr. Ross Sullivan, a physician there, recalls one afternoon when staff wheeled in a man with dilated pupils who was coveRed in sweat.
在过去几年里有过好几次发生在雪城SUNY Upstate大学医院急诊室里的事就像一部僵尸电影里的场景。 Ross Sullivan 博士是该医院的一内科医生，她回忆了那天下午当同事把一个浑身是汗而且瞳孔散大的男人推进来时的情形。

"The patient was screaming obscenities, and anybody he would pass, he was threatening and saying he was going to kill them," Sullivan recalls.
“这病人一直在骂着脏话，他威胁任何从他旁边经过的人，说他打算把他们都干掉 。” Sullivan 回忆道。

Police suspected the patient had taken "bath salts," the notorious synthetic stimulants that were ravaging scores of American communities at the time.
警察怀疑患者之前曾服用过一种臭名昭彰的人工合成毒品-“浴盐”。在那时，这种毒品已经摧毁了大量美国社区。

It took 10 people to hold him down, and even then he was able to break a limb free. Eventually, they injected him with a sedative.
这需要10个人才能压制住这个病患，即使那样他还能挣脱掉。最终，他们只能给他注射镇定剂。

"We probably used 10 times the dosage we would have used in a nondrug-induced person," Sullivan says.
“我们可能要对一个非药物诱导的人注射10倍用量的镇定剂，” Sullivan 说

An empty lab used by China Enriching Chemistry, which was accused of shipping illegal drugs to the U.S. Eric Chang, the company's director, is currently in jail in China, where he was charged with producing ecstasy.
图中是上海灿禾化工有限公司一间空置了的实验室。该公司被指控非法输送毒品到美国。这家公司的主管Eric Chang，正目前因为被指控生产毒品而被关在中国的监狱里。
In central New York around that time, bath salts sent hundreds of people to emergency rooms for hallucinations, seizures, even heart attacks. But what most people didn't know is that some of the drugs wreaking havoc in New York state — as well as in Southern California, Virginia and Texas — were created thousands of miles away in a lab in China, according to a federal indictment.
大约那个时候的纽约市中心,上百人因为“浴用盐”所导致的幻觉，癫痫甚至是心脏病而被送往急救室。但是大多数人不知道的是，根据联邦的控诉，一些在纽约州，同样也在南加州，弗吉尼亚州，德克萨斯州肆虐的毒品，其实是在千里之外的中国实验室创造出来的。

A Mystery Drug
一种神秘的药物

When law enforcement in New York State first came upon the drugs, they couldn't figure out what they were. The ingredients in bath salts didn't test positive for heroin, ecstasy or cocaine. That's the reason they were marketed as a "legal high," and sold in convenience stores and head shops.
在纽约州，法律刚开始实施就碰到了这种药物，人们不能确定这种药物是否是毒品。因为这种浴盐没有检测出与海洛因、摇头丸和可卡因相似的成分，所以它就被标为“合法的兴奋剂”在便利店销售。（head shop是一种卖烟草、合法兴奋剂商店）

James Burns, assistant special agent in charge for DEA operations in upstate New York, says that was by design. The chemists making the drugs were tweaking the formula so users wouldn't test positive for a controlled substance.
詹姆斯·伯恩斯是负责纽约北部禁药取缔机构运营的一名助理特工，他指出这件事情是某些人故意做出的。那些制作药剂的化学家们改变了制作方法，所以用药者不能检测出受限的物质。

"It's damn clever on their part," Burns says. "It's been a real challenge to keep up with this stuff."
伯恩斯说：“他们真TMD聪明，赶上他们的步伐真是一种挑战啊！”

Law enforcement in Syracuse got a lucky break around Halloween 2010, when police responded to reports of a woman who was on the porch of her home firing a shotgun at what she believed to be ghosts.
2010年万圣节左右，在锡拉丘兹实施的法律获得了可喜的突破。当时，警方接到了一起枪击案的报警：一个妇女在她家的走廊上对一个她认为是鬼的东西开了枪。

"Local police went into her house and they found 7 kilograms of what they thought might be cocaine and a shipping label from CEC Ltd., Eric Chang," says Assistant U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman, who prosecuted the case.
作为这起案件的律师的美国助理律师卡拉·弗里德曼说：“当地警方进入她的房子后找到了7公斤可疑为可卡因的物质，并且这种物质附有一份上海灿禾化工有限公司的货运标签。”

CEC stands for China Enriching Chemistry, a small company with an office in Shanghai and a factory in neighboring Jiangsu province. Eric Chang is its director.
CEC代表中国灿和化学，一家在上海拥有办公室在江苏拥有工厂的小企业。其主管是Eric Chang.

The drug that police found in the woman's home wasn't cocaine, but a factory-made derivative of mephedrone, a dangerous, hallucinogenic stimulant.
警方在这位妇女家中找到的毒品并非可卡因，而是一种由工厂生产的、危险的致幻兴奋剂甲氧麻黄酮衍生物。

The woman was part of a Syracuse drug ring that, police say, had ordered more than 100 kilograms of mephedrone from Chang, using his company's website and a professional courier service.
据警方称这位妇女是纽约州锡拉丘茨贩毒集团的成员，曾经从Chang订购了超过100公斤的甲氧麻黄酮，使用他的公司网站和专业快递。

Freedman says Chang was a shrewd businessman.
弗里德曼说Chang是一位狡猾的商人。

"It was right there on his website that if your package is seized, he'd keep shipping till you get it," she says. "He was charging about $5,400 a kilo. His profit margin, we are pretty sure, must be enormous based on how much it cost to make it."
“通过其网站上，如果你的包裹被查封了，他会继续寄送直到你收到为止。”她说，“每公斤要价5400美元。我们十分确定，根据他所用的成本，其利润率必定是相当巨大的。”

Big Business
大生意
"Eric was very friendly," says journalist Mike Power, the author of Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That's Changing How the World Gets High. Power got to know Chang over the phone and by email while he was working on an expose on mephedrone for the Daily Mail on Sunday, the London newspaper.
“Eric非常友好，”记者迈克·鲍尔说，他是《毒品2.0：让世界变得更兴奋的网络革命》的作者。当鲍尔为伦敦《每日邮报》周日版工作时，为了揭露甲氧麻黄酮，通过电话和email认识了Chang。

A number of people had died in the United Kingdom from mephedrone, and Power says he was hunting for a kingpin. Posing as an online buyer, Power found Chang's contacts.
在英国，许多人死于甲氧麻黄酮，鲍尔说他当时正在追查关键人物。鲍尔假扮成一个网络购买者，找到了Chang的联系方式。

A Daily Mail reporter based in Hong Kong went undercover inside Chang's Shanghai lab. Photos published by the newspaper showed squalid conditions. The floors were covered with dirty pieces of cardboard, and cabinets were splattered with orange chemicals.
一位来自香港的每日邮报记者暗中前往Chang在上海的实验室。报纸刊登的照片展示了肮脏的环境。地板上覆盖着脏纸板，橱柜溅有橙色的化学品。

Power says Chang came off as "an ambitious, successful guy that was driving an expensive SUV, drinking lots of Red Bull energy drinks. He was a very busy guy, living in a fancy apartment — complaining his wife never saw him because he was so busy."
鲍尔说Chang像一个“野心勃勃的成功男士，开着昂贵的SUV，喝下很多红牛能量饮料。他是一个大忙人，住在花哨的公寓中——他的妻子抱怨说他太忙了从来见不到他。”

Power says Chang also appeared to be a big producer and showed him FedEx dockets of shipments to Europe to prove it. Power said he planned to order what he personally thought was a huge quantity of the drug, about 10 kilograms a month for two years. But, he says, Chang was dismissive.
鲍尔说Chang看起来似乎是一位大厂家并且展示了他寄往欧洲的FedEx的记录联来证明这点。鲍尔说他计划订购他自认为巨量的这种毒品，大约两年时间内每个月10公斤。但是，他说，Chang不屑一顾。

"He thought it wasn't particularly impressive," Power recalls.
“他认为那并不令人印象深刻，”鲍尔回忆。

Shanghai has a big, legitimate pharmaceutical industry. Power — who never actually ordered the mephedrone — says factories like Chang's branched out into recreational drugs in response to orders from Europe. It was far cheaper to outsource chemical synthesis than to do it in the United Kingdom. Power says it seemed like a logical extension of multinationals offshoring the manufacture of sneakers and home furnishings.
上海有一个大型的合法制药工业。鲍尔——并没有真正的订购甲氧麻黄酮——说类似Chang的工厂扩展业务接受来自欧洲的订单。外包化学合成远比在英国做便宜。鲍尔说，看起来合理的跨国合作，类似外包运动鞋和家具生产。

Investigators say Chang made around $30 million selling drugs to the U.S. and Europe. China banned mephedrone in 2010, but Chang remained free. American authorities say he shipped drugs to central New York as recently as February 2013.
调查员说Chang通过向美国和欧洲出售药品，大约赚了3千万美元。中国在2010年禁了甲氧麻黄酮，但是Chang仍然继续。美国当局称，2013年2月他开始向纽约寄送毒品。

Last year, Chang was named in a federal indictment in Syracuse. Without an extradition treaty, American authorities couldn't touch him, but they did tell the Chinese.
去年，Chang被锡拉丘兹联邦政府起诉。由于没有引渡条约，美国政府没法碰他，但是他们告诉了中国政府。

Empty chemical drums sit in a deserted lab accused of shipping illegal drugs to the U.S.
空化学品桶 在控向美国寄送非法药品的脏实验室里

Going To The Source
找到源头

Last week, I went to Chang's headquarters in a mid-rise office complex near Shanghai Stadium. The lights were out. A bike sat parked behind an empty reception desk.
上周，我到Chang在上海体育馆附近的中高层楼群中的总部。没有灯，一辆自行车停在空接待台的后面。

I met his mother, Wang Guoying, who was working in Chang's office. She said policed arrested him last November. She also complained how hard it is running the company without him.
我见到了他的母亲，Wang Guoying，曾在Chang的办公室工作。她说警察去年11月逮捕了他。她同时诉说没有他经营公司是多么困难。

A staffer named Zhang Mingjie said the firm is currently selling anti-AIDS drugs to India, but a company brochure I picked up still advertised mephedrone. Sienna Tang, who handles exports for the company, said 20 cops raided the office late last year.
一位叫Zhang Mingjie的员工说公司目前在卖抗艾滋药给印度，但是我捡到的公司宣传册依然在给甲氧麻黄酮做广告。负责出口的Sienna Tang说去年超过二十个警察搜查了办公室。

"I come here about 10 o'clock, so many people in this office," she said in English. "I'm afraid, just because so many policemen asked me [questions]."
“我大约早上十点到，已经有很多警察在这办公室里了，”她用英文说。“我很害怕，因为许多警察都问我（问题）。”

Tang says her boss didn't tell her much about what she was shipping. "I just know the shipping name," she said, "but I do not know the exact material."
Tang说老板并没有告诉她她寄的是什么。“我只知道运输名称（注），”她说，“但我不知道具体是什么东西”

Chang's attorney says he's in jail now, charged with producing ecstasy. Shanghai police declined to discuss the case or explain why they didn't bust Chang earlier.
Chang的律师说他已经进了监狱，被控制造摇头丸。上海警方谢绝评论这个案子或者解释他们为什么没有早点逮捕Chang。

Back in Syracuse, the situation has improved, according to Michele Caliva, who runs the Upstate New York Poison Control Center, which works with hospitals in the region. She says the state health department banned stores from selling bath salts and police cracked down on head shops.
回到锡拉丘兹，据米歇尔·卡里瓦说，他负责北纽约毒物控制中心，和该地区的医院合作。她说，州卫生部禁止销售浴盐和警方摧毁出售毒品的商店后，情况已经得到了改善。

"The accessibility was really key," she says. "The fact that the average person could no longer just casually go in and buy it made a difference."
“可得性的确是关键，”她说。“事实上普通人不再能偶然进入并且购买，是有影响的。”

Caliva says the region still has serious drug problems, but by last year, emergency room admissions for bath salts — and stories about crazed users — had plummeted.
卡里瓦说该地区仍有严重的毒品问题，但是到去年为止，因浴盐进急诊室——以及关于疯狂的瘾君子的故事——已经急剧减少。