io9 |
io9 |
New York City emergency rooms are seeing an outbreak of synthetic smokable drug-related illnesses, according to the city’s health department.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a warning on Sunday urging people not to buy or use “synthetic cannabinoids,” which are often sold at head shops under names like K2, Spice, and Green Giant. The agency says it’s gotten reports of 15 fake weed-related emergency room visits over the past two days, concentrated in East Harlem, Central Harlem and Chelsea.
Does this look anything like weed to you? |
We’ve been saying it for years now: syntheic marijuana is absolutely nothing like real marijuana whatsoever and doesn’t deserve the inaccurate moniker whatsoever.
And it seems the Baton Rouge, Louisana coroner agrees with us.
“This is a poison,” Dr. Beau Clark, East Baton Rouge Parish’s coroner, tells The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. “It’s not really anything like marijuana.”
(U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Tech. Sgt. Michael R. Holzworth) |
One of the darkest examples of the consequences of cannabis prohibition is the rise in recent years of synthetic marijuana alternatives, such as the all-too-popular brand K2, or “Spice”.
Although these so-called “synthetic cannabinoids”, intended to simulate the effects of real weed, are already banned in many states, and have been the focus of several high-profile DEA raids of late, the creators of the chemical mixtures simply alter their recipes ever so slightly to sidestep law enforcement and prosecution.
These synthetic smokables do not resemble marijuana. |
Stephane Colbert says her 19-year-old son died in 2011, allegedly after he smoked a synthetic, lab-made c compound called “Mr. Smiley” that many news outlets are calling “synthetic marijuana”..
Synthetic weed was banned federally in May of 2011 but Nicholas Colbert still was able to purchase some of the stuff in September of that year from a neighborhood Kwik Stop in the Springs.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this week says there is a link between smoking synthetic cannabis (Spice, K2) and acute kidney injury and even kidney failure. But as for how much of a link there is, scientists aren’t exactly sure.
Photo: The Julius Axelrod Papers |
Dr. Julius Axelrod, pictured above, conducted some of the original research which culminated in the United States government getting a patent on all cannabinoids in 2003. |
Welcome to Room 420, where your instructor is Mr. Ron Marczyk and your subjects are wellness, disease prevention, self actualization, and chillin’.
Photo: Dan Gill/The New York Times |
Julie Meyers, 20, smokes “synthetic marijuana” at Petra Cafe and Hookah Bar in St. Louis days before Missouri’s ban was signed into law. |
It was bound to happen, sooner or later, and this is the first time Toke of the Town has heard of it: Laralee Herron, 20, entered the annals of hemp history (though probably not how she wanted) when she was arrested Sunday night in West Monroe, Louisiana, for possession of “synthetic marijuana.”
Photo: WuTangCorp.com |
Vegetable matter is sprayed with synthetic cannabinoid JWH-018 and marketed under the brandname “K2” |
Federal agents are cracking down in imports of a “synthetic marijuana” as the substance, legal in 49 states (everywhere except soon-to-be-illegal Kansas), gains popularity nationwide.
An administrative law judge this week ordered the state to allow PTSD sufferers to use medical marijuana, reversing a decision by the state health-services department.
Will Humble, director of the state DHS, wrote about Wednesday’s decision by state Administrative Law Judge Thomas Shedden in his blog last week.
“I have until July 9 to either accept, reject or modify the recommended decision,” Humble wrote. “I’ll be studying the report and will make a decision after analyzing the Decision and Order.”