2012 law enforcement in grand forks were dealing with an outbreak of violent overdoses. a mystery drug on the streets had already killed two teenagers. >> we've got multiple overdoses. we've got two young men that have lost their lives. i mean, what's more serious than that? >> tim purdon is a u.s. attorney for north dakota. >> it was unprecedented. i had -- i've been u.s. attorney now for going on four years. this is the only time we reached out to a school system, to the university and said hey, there's this danger on the streets right now that people need to be aware about. >> as the emergency warnings were being issued, investigators were desperately trying to find out just what this drug was, and more importantly where it came from. >> it took lab analysis to determine the true nature of these substances. when we learned what they were, 2c-i-nbome, 2c-c-nbome, that was new to us. >> 2c-i-nbome and 2c-c-nbome are synthetic designer drugs,