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Invisibledwpineal
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Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown
    #17623190 - 01/28/13 11:48 AM (11 years, 20 days ago)

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-01-26/health/fl-synthetic-drugs-crackdown-20130126_1_synthetic-marijuana-bath-salts-legal-marijuana

Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown

January 26, 2013|By Nicole Brochu, Sun Sentinel

Nowhere in the country have authorities done more to combat the spread of the laboratory-made drugs known as synthetic marijuana and bath salts than South Florida. But a Sun Sentinel investigation found that while poison control calls and drug arrests have dropped, the unprecedented community assault has yielded unsettling side effects — driving the illegal synthetic drug industry even further underground.

On the illicit market, clandestine chemists tinker with their compounds to stay one step ahead of the law, drug dealers ply the ever-evolving wares over the Internet to anyone with a credit card and a mailing address, and area youth know which convenience stores still sell the stuff under the counter.

In South Florida, where one of the nation's biggest manufacturers of synthetic marijuana built a bustling business in roadside warehouses, many teens and young adults are tripping out in ways surprising even to veteran emergency room doctors. And some are dying, destroyed by chemical concoctions doctors say have far worse effects on the mind and body than the marijuana and cocaine they are designed to mimic.

"The more recent products are the least known, and even more dangerous," said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. "People don't know what they're getting. Their favorite brands are changing from one week to the next."

According to poison control center statistics, synthetic marijuana has become especially appealing to South Florida youth. Its active ingredient, a chemical brewed in labs in China and India, was invented by an American chemistry professor to help the sick. Those who've tried it say it yields a disturbing, mind-addling high like few other drugs.

"One time, I was watching 'How I Met Your Mother' and I did it, and I had the loudest ringing in my ears," said Sam Hathaway, 17, of Pembroke Pines. "I couldn't understand anything going on on that show ... you get really confused."

Many users of synthetic drugs suffer serious health effects: seizures, chest pain, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, panic attacks, paranoia, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, memory deficits. Then there are the psychotic episodes, fueled by delusions and violent urges, that even veteran South Florida emergency room doctors call "scary."

Despite those dangerous effects, some former users know where to find it when they want it.

Max Earney, 17, of Cooper City, said all he would have to do is ask for "spice" — synthetic marijuana's street name — and the clerk at one store he knows will pull out a hidden box and sell him the latest brands.

"They don't even ask for ID," said Earney, one of several Broward County youths who spoke to the Sun Sentinel about their former drug use. "But they'll only sell it to you if they trust you."

Others do sell to strangers.

Even after bans made illegal the sale of anything resembling synthetic marijuana and its cocaine-like sister, bath salts, in Broward and Palm Beach counties last year, the Sun Sentinel recently was able to purchase three packets of brightly packaged "herbal potpourri" after requesting "legal marijuana" from the clerk at a Pompano Beach convenience store. At least one contained a compound that authorities say is illegal under federal law.

At a cost of $15.99 for three or four grams, the products appear to be packaged to appeal to youth. They sport eye-catching graphics and punchy brand names: Dead Man Walking, Joker and Cali Comfort.

Javier Yzquierdo, another former user, said he is particularly familiar with the Joker brand.

"I smoked three bowls of Joker one time, and I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest," said the Miramar 17-year-old.

The Sun Sentinel paid a private chemical laboratory, Toxicology Testing Services Inc. in Miami, to analyze the contents of the Dead Man Walking packet. It tested positive for UR-144, a synthetic cannabinoid, a chemical compound whose effects on receptors in the brain mimic a marijuana high — only at far more potent levels.

In court papers, the federal government calls UR-144 "a Schedule 1 controlled substance analogue" outlawed by the Controlled Substance Act. That same compound is at the heart of the feds' case against the West Palm Beach manufacturers of Mr. Nice Guy, one of the nation's top-selling brands of synthetic marijuana.

Violating the federal act can bring a prison sentence of five to 40 years. Florida law also now makes it a third-degree felony — punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine — to sell, manufacture or deliver, or possess with intent to sell, advertise or deliver synthetic drugs.

"Our biggest problem to start with was this stuff was easier to buy than bubble gum," said Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. "It was in the gas stations, the convenience stores. The proliferation was unbelievable.

"Once we started the crackdown, that got it out of the easy-to-get category … But there is no doubt people who want to find it illegally will find a way."

But the fight against the synthetics is unique in one respect: Debate is intense about precisely which substances are illegal, and how close to an outlawed chemical an "analogue," or similar product, must be to be subject to the same ban.

As the courts wrestle with that question, a multi-level government crackdown is making an impact. The federal charges against the makers of Mr. Nice Guy were part of a nationwide synthetic-drug sweep, dubbed Operation Log Jam, which netted 90 arrests across the country in July. Nine were in Florida.

Those high-profile raids, coming on top of local laws banning synthetic marijuana and bath salts across South Florida, seem to have largely swept the drugs from the open market. No longer are they peddled from display cases at the front counters at area gas stations and convenience stores. Dozens of store clerks told the Sun Sentinel they have stopped selling the drugs because they're now illegal.

Other positive effects:

• The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office crime lab has seen "a significant drop" in synthetic marijuana and bath salt cases since August, falling to about 10 a month from the 40 to 50 cases the agency processed monthly before then, said Tate Yeatman, manager of the Sheriff's Office chemical and toxicology unit.

• Calls to Florida poison control centers subsided, too, according to the Florida Poison Information Center in Miami. Poison control centers around the state fielded 21 calls in December, for example, down from an all-time high of 84 in February.

• Nabil El Sanadi, director of emergency medicine at Broward Health System, said the numbers of bath salt and synthetic marijuana cases showing up in area emergency rooms are no longer on the rise.

Such progress, some observers say, is in part due to aggressive efforts by city and county officials throughout Broward and Palm Beach counties who took the initiative to clamp down on the drugs in their jurisdictions.

"We were really the first place I've heard of in the country where communities stepped in with their own bans," Hall said.

But the impact has been blunted by the drug makers' canny ability to exploit the law's gray areas and keep alive an industry that state and federal officials estimate is worth billions of dollars.

UR-144 is one example. Though federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials consider the compound an illegal "analogue," similar to the cannabinoids banned by law, specialists, like the owner of the private Miami lab that tested the Dead Man Walking packet for the Sun Sentinel, question whether its chemical makeup is close enough to be covered by the law.

Attorneys for one former Daytona Beach manufacturer are testing that contention in court, challenging federal charges that the UR-144 found in their client's synthetic marijuana operation was illegal — a case being watched closely by those facing similar charges.

Boca Raton attorney Spencer Siegel is trying to get federal drug manufacturing charges dropped against two clients arrested in September after some of the 235 pounds of synthetic marijuana confiscated from their West Boca warehouse tested positive for UR-144.

In the meantime, though, his firm has unequivocal advice for those calling "every day" to ask whether it's legally safe to make, distribute or sell the evolving brands of synthetic marijuana or bath salts.

"My firm has been pretty clear in telling people that it shouldn't be sold right now," Siegel said. "The law is being interpreted by the federal government in a way that's inconsistent with science. But I tell them, 'Even if you're right, you'll be making that argument from behind bars.'"

To keep up with the evolving compounds, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed an emergency order Dec. 11 specifically outlawing UR-144 and 21 other synthetic drugs statewide. But experts say it's only a matter of time before new, even more dangerous cannabinoids emerge.

"The bad guys are three to four steps ahead of law enforcement, and five to six steps ahead of clinicians," El Sanadi said.

Few know this better than Bondi, who signed the state's first emergency order in January 2011 banning so-called bath salts. Less than two years later, Bondi told the Sun Sentinel, she got a rude wake-up call about the challenges of snuffing out the synthetic drug trade.

While getting her hair cut at a western Florida salon in October 2012, the state's top law enforcement official said, she watched in amazement through the shop window as teens lined up at a nearby convenience store, bought bath salts and inhaled them in plain view.

"I'm sitting there watching them snort this stuff," Bondi said. "I couldn't believe it."

The incident made the attorney general all the more determined to come back this March with stronger, "more comprehensive legislation," though she wouldn't give specifics so as not to tip off synthetic drug manufacturers in advance.

"We're not going to let the drug dealers win," Bondi said. "Our children are overdosing."

One synthetics user, a Davie man hearing voices inside his head, jumped from a moving taxicab and split his head open on a guardrail. Another man fought so hard against paramedics that he dislocated both shoulders. A teenager spent 10 days in a hospital psychiatric unit before doctors discovered synthetic marijuana was to blame for his psychosis.

"Their minds are telling them to do all these goofy things," El Sanadi said. "We've seen the most unbelievable cases."

"And these effects last not for a few hours but a week, even 10 days," said Dr. Peter Antevy, medical director at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood. "Sometimes it changes these kids forever — and that's the scary part."

There are no official statistics, but media reports have attributed at least nine deaths in Florida to synthetic drugs. Maureen Barrett believes they played a role in the death of her son. On March 13, 2011, after years of battling drug addictions, the 30-year-old Davie man was found dead on his apartment floor, near two packets of his favorite brands of fake weed. Toxicology tests later confirmed the presence of synthetic marijuana in his system.

"This kid had help all the way, but synthetic drugs, in combination with other drugs, forget it," Barrett said. "It is so deadly."

Staff writer Jon Burstein contributed to this report.

nbrochu@tribune.com


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InvisibleEminence
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Registered: 07/25/10
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Loc: Richmond, VA Flag
Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: dwpineal]
    #17623469 - 01/28/13 12:52 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

:haha:


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InvisibleDebuteMachine

Registered: 09/29/06
Posts: 6,457
Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: Eminence]
    #17623626 - 01/28/13 01:17 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

This article was way too fucking long, but I'm glad they brought up the point that UR-144 is too different to be considered controlled by that gay act they passed. Fuck that shit.

Quote:

"My firm has been pretty clear in telling people that it shouldn't be sold right now," Siegel said. "The law is being interpreted by the federal government in a way that's inconsistent with science. But I tell them, 'Even if you're right, you'll be making that argument from behind bars.'"




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Offlineshopdropper
Professional Psychonaut
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Registered: 03/13/06
Posts: 1,623
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Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: DebuteMachine]
    #17625048 - 01/28/13 05:43 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

I personally hope they do make RCs illegal. The good ones will survive. And the focus will shift back to quality drugs.


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InvisibleMrKite1
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Registered: 03/02/04
Posts: 1,384
Loc: AK
Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: shopdropper]
    #17625169 - 01/28/13 06:03 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

The same thing would happen if drugs were legal, too. People would exercise freedom of choice.
Don't forget that the massive popularity of research chemicals as a legal alternative to illicit drugs was an unintended consequence in the first place.

More laws will accomplish nothing positive. More people in prison, more ambiguity in the quality/composition of street drugs; that doesn't sound like a very good
Quote:

shift back to quality drugs.




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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


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OfflineGodluck
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Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: MrKite1]
    #17626258 - 01/28/13 09:15 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

"In South Florida...many adults are tripping out...And some are dying, DESTROOOOOOYED by CHEMICAL (ooh scary)  concoctions DOCTORS (are always right :wink: say have far worse effects on the mind and body than the marijuana and cocaine they are designed to mimic."

There are just so many things wrong with this piece of "journalism" or whatever it's called.  And I even left out some of the less interesting retarded parts.


What kind of people are working  for the Sun Sentinel?  They must suck.


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OfflineTokeUp
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Registered: 03/27/12
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Last seen: 10 years, 10 months
Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: Godluck]
    #17626795 - 01/28/13 11:15 PM (11 years, 20 days ago)

At smoke shops near me you can still find 25+ brands selling their homemade synthetic weed, its just called potpourri instead of spice now. There is a wide range of other prepackaged "legal highs" but Ive never bothered to read what they are.

I can also find JWH's and AM's pretty easy at another spot


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Offlinesasquatchface
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Registered: 01/13/13
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Last seen: 11 years, 15 days
Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: TokeUp]
    #17633341 - 01/30/13 03:31 AM (11 years, 18 days ago)

im starting the medical bathsalt movement right here and now.  eating peoples faces just isnt the same without sum baff salt n pepper !!:syringe:


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Offlinedeadheadnate
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Loc: Indiana, USA
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Re: Synthetic marijuana, bath salts still easily obtained despite crackdown [Re: sasquatchface]
    #17640876 - 01/30/13 10:30 PM (11 years, 18 days ago)

my county has a ban on that stuff but somehow the head shops in town still sell it.


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The bus came by, and I got on. That's when it all began.


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