“Got spice?”
That was the big, clever marketing message on a banner displayed by a Spokane-area convenience store when Sarah Denis drove by.
Denis, a chemical dependency counselor at Daybreak Youth Services, a Vancouver residential drug-treatment facility for teen boys, wondered if the store owner knows what she’s been learning recently: Spice and its chemical cousins may still be legal — but they can cause anxiety, paranoia, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, vomiting, seizures and other nasty health problems.
Sounds like a fun high, huh?
Synthetic cannabinoids, originally designed to mimic the effects of marijuana for medical testing, have arrived in Clark County — and spread across the nation — as a supposedly safe and legal alternative to pot. You can buy it in local smoke shops and some convenience stores, where it comes in little foil squares, labeled as incense and stamped with the additional warning, “Not for human consumption.” But manufacturer, seller and buyer all know what it’s really for.
It isn’t detected by traditional urinalysis. Police and local hospitals aren’t reporting crime waves or emergency rooms swamped with kids totally splattered on spice.
But Denis, who interviews teen boys on their way into Daybreak for inpatient treatment, said she’s heard that spice sparks some distinctly unpotlike behaviors: rather than slowing down or mellowing out the smoker, it can lead to a loss of impulse control and a serious psychological need for more. There are anecdotal reports of kids ransacking their homes for the money to buy it, she said.
“But some kids say it’s not that way for them,” she added.
“The temptation to use it, and to think it’s OK to use it, are pretty strong,” said Donna Wiench, Daybreak’s development director. “They tell us it’s not a drug because it’s not illegal and it’s not addictive.”
But synthetic cannabis has been banned across Europe and in several states, including Oregon, which classified it as a Schedule 1 drug — making sale and possession illegal — just last month.
“I don’t know why it’s been banned in Oregon and not here,” said Wiench. “I think it’s just a matter of time.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency noted as far back as April 2009 that synthetic cannabis is on the market, masquerading as incense, under names like “Spice Gold,” “Spice Silver,” “Spice Diamond,” “K2,” “Spike,” “Genie” and “Yucatan Fire.” The agency is looking into banning it on the federal level — but that can be a lengthy and difficult process without a guaranteed outcome, especially given that synthetic cannabis was first developed for, and remains quite useful in, medical and pharmaceutical testing.
According to online sources, manufacturers initially claimed that spice produces a mild, potlike high though a blend of legal, natural herbs. But the chemical fingerprints of those herbs turned up missing in lab analyses. Meanwhile, large amounts of synthetic chemicals were detected — indicating that it’s impossible to know what’s really in a packet of spice and how any given user might react to it. It’s been reported that the synthetic chemicals are far more potent than the psychoactive ingredients in marijuana.
The Daily Olympian recently reported on a youth who wound up in the emergency room after smoking spice. His blood pressure was low and his heart was racing. An emergency room physician said he could have died. In Iowa, a teen stoned on synthetic cannabis experienced an extreme panic attack and shot himself.
“We don’t know enough about the human pharmacological effects of these substances,” The Daily Olympian was told by Wake Forest University pharmacology professor Steve Childers, who conducts medical research with synthetic cannaboids. “Anybody with any brains wouldn’t use them.”
And the Washington Poison Center recently put out a bulletin regarding an increase in the use of synthetic marijuana.
“Some users report similar effects to marijuana, but many poison centers have noted that patients tend to develop symptoms that bring them to the ER, such as rapid heart rate, agitation, paranoid behavior, high blood pressure, dilated pupils, and fever,” the bulletin said.
The Washington Poison Center also notes that new urinalysis tests have been developed to detect spice.
Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525 or scott.hewitt@columbian.com.
