A new drug known as Molly that has been gaining popularity in the U.S. over the last year may not have found a home in Covington County yet, but officials say it is certainly passing through.

“The Molly we see is basically coming through the county on its way somewhere else,” said River Falls Police Chief and Drug Task Force agent Greg Jackson. “It hasn’t really hit here yet.”

In Florala, Police Chief Sonny Bedsole said the situation is similar, but added this time of year much more of the drug is present, as travelers attempt to smuggle it through the county on their travels to the Gulf Coast.

“What we’ve been getting is people coming through on their way to the beach,” Bedsole said. “We have seen one or two cases of it from here in the county, but mostly it’s being brought through.”

Jackson also said the drug has made appearances in Covington County, but has not shown up with the consistency of marijuana or meth.

“We haven’t seen it enough to know who the drug dealers are,” Jackson said.

While Jackson and Bedsole reported similar situations with the drug, both men also pointed to Molly’s dangerous combination of ingredients as one more reason they hope the drug doesn’t make a pit stop in Covington County.

“It’s basically like a souped-up form of Ecstasy,” Bedsole said. “It’s a combination of meth and Ecstasy.”

So far, Bedsole said, the synthetic drug appears to be more widely used in urban areas, where it has been marketed by dealers as pure MDMA, the active ingredient in Ecstasy. Molly can take many different forms, although it’s most often found in a capsule or powder. The DEA has also seen Molly applied to blotting paper, like LSD, and in injectable form.

Bedsole said traffic stops over the weekend in Florala netted a total of eight bags of Molly, with seven bags coming from a single vehicle. In both cases, the motorists were passing through Covington County.