Risky ‘gas station heroin’ sold online as mood enhancer made man $2.2 million, feds say

The known risks of tianeptine didn’t stop a California man from selling the drug online as a mood enhancing supplement to U.S. customers — even after he was federally indicted, prosecutors say. Now, he’s going to prison.

Ryan M. Stabile, 37, of Pasadena, sold the substance commonly called “gas station heroin,” through his companies, including the websites “Supplements for Work” and “Ultra Vulgar Festival Drip,” and made $250,000 a month, according to court documents.

The illegal sales earned him at least $2.2 million, which is a “conservative estimate,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

With the help of a Chinese supplier, Stabile smuggled large quantities of tianeptine into the U.S. from China and repackaged the drug to sell to customers, including people in Massachusetts, prosecutors said.

In marketing tianeptine as a mood enhancer, Stabile also promoted it as a drug with the ability to boost cognitive functioning, according to prosecutors.

This claim is “dangerous and unproven” — similar to claims that tianeptine can act as a treatment for anxiety, depression, pain and opioid use disorder, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Though tianeptine is approved to treat anxiety and depression in some countries, it’s not approved in the U.S., where companies continue to illegally sell it, the FDA says.

“(Stabile) did not sell Tianeptine to his customers because he was trying to help people heal their minds,” prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memo. “He did so for a much more common reason — money.”

The sentence

A judge has sentenced Stabile to two years in prison on charges of conspiracy and two counts of introduction of misbranded drugs with intent to defraud and mislead, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced in a Feb. 15 news release.

He was also ordered to forfeit $1,833,922, prosecutors said.

One of the defense attorneys representing Stabile, Andrew S. Feldman, who’s based in Miami, told McClatchy News on Feb. 15 that “the court imposed a reasonable sentence” after prosecutors had sought a four-year prison sentence.

However, Feldman said they were surprised the attorney’s office portrayed Stabile “as an El-Chapo type of smuggler” in the news release.

“None of the consumers of Tianeptine in this case were harmed or overdosed,” Feldman said.

According to prosecutors, Stabile continued to sell tianeptine in the years following his indictment in the case in November 2019.

“After being told to stop selling tianeptine over and over again, (Stabile) was defiant….he continued smuggling the dangerous drug into the US,” the sentencing memo says.

Tianeptine has been officially banned in several states, including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee, following warnings from health officials, McClatchy News previously reported.

What are potential dangers of tianeptine?

Tianeptine is often sold as a tablet or in a powder in the U.S., where reports of bad reactions are on the rise, according to the FDA. The agency is warning of its potential for abuse.

The drug acts as an “antidepressant agent” by increasing serotonin and reducing stress, according to a review of its use in depressive disorders published in the National Library of Medicine in 2001.

At the time, the review reported that some studies found tianeptine to be effective for patients with depression, as well as those with anxiety and had a “low propensity for abuse.”

Since the report was published, poison control center cases associated with tianeptine have increased in the U.S., according to the FDA. Between 2000 and 2013, there were 11 cases while in 2020, there were 150 cases.

The FDA says there’s been cases in which abusing tianeptine on its own — or taking it with other medications like antidepressants — has led to serious serious symptoms including:

• Agitation

• Drowsiness

• Confusion

• Sweating

• Rapid heartbeat

• Increased blood pressure

• Nausea and vomiting

• Slowed breathing or breathing that stops

• Coma

In other cases, misusing tianeptine has resulted in death, the FDA says.

In Florida on Sept. 21, Attorney General Ashley Moody banned the sale of tianeptine, McClatchy News reported.

She announced poison control centers had received more than 600 tianeptine exposure calls from 2020 to 2022, including calls linked to five deaths.

“Consumers may inadvertently find themselves addicted to tianeptine,” the FDA warns.

The drug is sold under various names, including tianeptine sulfate, tianeptine sodium powder, Tianaa, Tianna Green, Tianna Red and Tianna White, according to the FDA.

‘Profited on his customers’ addiction’

In a 2017 email to his supplier in China, Stabile wrote that “he was ‘desperate for tianeptine’ because ‘customer demand is high,’” according to the sentencing memo.

“(He) profited on his customers’ addictions,” prosecutors said.

Unapproved drugs smuggled into the U.S. can be dangerous to consumers because it’s unknown what ingredients they may contain and how they’re manufactured, said Fernando McMillan, the special agent in charge of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigation, in the news release.

According to Feldman, in addition to Stabile pleading guilty in the case, his company “implemented an addict tracker system, flagged those accounts, and deactivated suspect accounts” and also sent product samples to labs to test for adulterants.

“We hope that the FDA takes serious steps to stop the illegal sale of Tianeptine online and in gas stations,” Feldman said.

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