Rent-A-Car Employee Accused of Spiking Co-Workers’ Water With LSD

File photo of a medicine dropper like the one a 19-year-old Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee allegedly used to put a psychoactive substance believed to be LSD in co-workers' water bottles, Arnold, Mo., on March 21, 2019. Pixabay

Authorities are investigating the case of an Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee accused of slipping LSD into his co-workers’ water bottles.

A 19-year-old man is in custody in connection with the incident, which allegedly took place at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location in Arnold, Missouri, last Thursday, March 21, according to KMOV.

Arnold Police received a call from the Enterprise manager, who reported that two employees, a 24-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man, had both been hospitalized after they began to feel “weird and dizzy,” according to the Jefferson County Leader.

The manager told police she noticed the suspect “acting weird” and handling a medicine dropper. She said she had seen him “messing with” her bottle and decided not to drink out of it, according to The Leader.

The two employees reported feeling dizzy, shaky, and confused.

The task force commander of the Jefferson County Municipal Enforcement Group told KMOV the symptoms the workers experienced are consistent with the effects of LSD.

“You’re going to have an increased heart rate, temperature, higher blood pressure. It’s been described as causing the shakes or tremors,” said Sgt. Tony Dennis with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, according to the news outlet.

Both employees sought treatment and were hospitalized at Mercy Hospital South.

The workers reported feeling better after the effects of the drug wore off.

They were subsequently released from the hospital.

‘Too Uptight’

Lt. Clinton Wooldridge was cited by KMOV as saying that when officers questioned the suspect, he admitted putting LSD in the water bottles of two co-workers and a third employee’s coffee cup.

Police said the man told them he did it because his fellow employees “were too uptight, and needed to have better energy,” according to The Leader.

No charges had been filed against the suspect at the time of reporting pending lab tests on the water.

Police said the 19-year-old employee could face charges of second-degree assault and possession of a controlled substance.

‘Terrible’

People interviewed in the streets of Arnold expressed outrage at the suspect’s alleged actions and called for the man to face consequences.

“I can’t believe it. It’s ridiculous,” said an unnamed individual, according to Ozarks First. “I just can’t understand why anyone would think about something like that.”

“Terrible,” said another passerby who did not wish to be identified, “He should be arrested.”

Opioid Crisis

According to a recent report by the National Safety Council (NSC), accidental opioid overdose has surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of unintentional deaths in the United States.

Americans have a 1 in 96 chance of dying from an opioid overdose, while the probability of dying in a motor vehicle accident is 1 in 103.

The council’s analysis is based on 2017 mortality data by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The nation’s opioid crisis is fueling the Council’s grim probabilities, and that crisis is worsening with an influx of illicit fentanyl,” the NSC said in a statement on Jan. 14.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), more than 130 people in the United States die of an opioid overdose each day, while the cost of prescription opioid misuse in the country is $78.5 billion a year. This includes the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid pain reliever 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, surpassed heroin to become the most common drug linked to an overdose death in 2016, according to the CDC (pdf).

Two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose for a non-opioid user.

Epoch Times reporter Janita Kan contributed to this report.