At first glance, this is just your typical drug war story: a man is pulled over in a routine traffic stop; the officer smells marijuana and starts a search; the suspect dashes off into the woods, gets hung up in barbed wire, tries to pull a gun, and gets shot in the chest; cops find drugs.
Except for this part:
Investigators found about 15 pounds of marijuana in the man's rented car, as well as an unspecified quantity of Ecstasy and another illegal drug called "hydro," (Trooper John) Sampa said.
What the hell is "hydro"?
Well, according to MDMA.net, it could be one of a few things:
Hydro: Amphetamine; high quality methamphetamine; marijuana; methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA); marijuana grown in water (hydroponic)
You would think that Trooper John Sampa would have gone to the trouble of more properly identifying one of the drugs this poor guy got himself shot over, but I guess in Houston, the "hydro" problem is so rampant that everyone just gets it.
Curiously, although Drug Policy Central's newsbot picked up a version of the story with the line about hydro, at this point the actual Houston Chronicle article no longer references hydro. Perhaps it's because Trooper John Sampa called back and said, "I'm sorry, we thought that shit was hydro - turns out it was just griffo and shazu."
