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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Germany’s orange ecstasy pills have Trump’s name – and face – all over them

This undated picture provided by Polizeiinspektion Osnabrueck police shows an ecstasy pill. German police say they have seized thousands of ecstasy pills in the shape of President Donald Trumps head. (Osnabrueck / Associated Press)
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. Washington Post

Police and parents have long worried about the dangers of drugs designed to look like candy. The fear, somewhat debunked, is that children would mistakenly get their hands on, say, meth that looks much like a lollipop.

No matter how slim the chances of drugmakers marketing to kids, authorities encouraged parents to warn their children.

But what do you tell children, or anyone, really, about an ecstasy pill that looks like President Donald Trump?

On Saturday, police in Osnabr, a city in the northwest German state of Lower Saxony, came across 5,000 of the tablets shaped like the head of the leader of the free world.

Officers had stopped a Peugeot 307 hatchback with suspect license plates.

The 51-year-old man in the car and his 17-year-old son said they were returning from an unsuccessful trip to Austria to buy a vehicle, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Suspicious, police searched the car. They found, secreted inside, $12,000 worth of ecstasy pills bearing the face and the name of the 45th U.S. president.

The front of each pill has Trump’s coifed hair and pursed lips. The back bears a resemblance to his campaign signs, with five stars in a line across the top and the word “Trump” in the middle.

The pills don’t bear the phrase “Make America Great Again,” but they do happen to be a deep shade of orange.

The man and his son were arrested and made their first court appearance Sunday.

According to the British newspaper Metro, the Trump ecstasy tablets, known to have high levels of MDMA, have been spreading around Europe, selling for more than $10 a pill.

It’s part of a decades-long history intertwining political imagery and illegal drugs.

Politically themed artwork — such as images of Che Guevara, stylized images of Uncle Sam and antiwar messages — has appeared since the 1960s on blotter paper used for LSD doses, according to HuffPost.

Mark McCloud has collected “Blotter Art” since the 1960s, according to Vice News. His collection has more than 33,000 tabs, which include images of a fish playing a banjo in an Uncle Sam hat.

And drugmakers haven’t limited their executive branch ecstasy to just the 45th president.

In 2009, according to CBS News, police in Palmview, Texas, stopped a car whose driver was carrying black tar heroin, cocaine and ecstasy pills shaped to look like President Barack Obama.