Denver Shop Sentenced to Pay $106K for Selling Synthetic Cannabis
For a while as part of the crazy fallout of prohibition, fake, synthetic cannabis was actually produced and sold as a “safer” alternative to real cannabis, or as a way to still get the effects of cannabis while being drug tested. Now we know the truth—synthetic cannabis, sometimes referred to as “spice,” is actually much more dangerous than cannabis, has been associated with many serious medical complications, and outlawed. Now a shop in Denver is being fined $160,000 for selling synthetic cannabis.
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office has decided that this is a punishment that fairly fits the crime. O’s Pipe & Tobacco, owned by Orlando Martinez, will pay off the fine installments over three years. To date, this is the largest settlement in the U.S. related to selling spice or synthetic cannabis.
The store was outed for selling spice when undercover investigators purchased product at the shop during a covert operation back on September 9, 2013. The investigators then seized 1,319 packages of spice to use in their case against the store. The Colorado Bureau of Investigations then tested the packages, and discovered that they were in fact definitely synthetic cannabinoids. In fact, some of the products tested were found to be part of the same infamous batch of spice that sent 221 people to emergency rooms back in 2013.
While this is a steep price to pay for a small shop, spice has actually been proven to be the dangerous substance that people have accused cannabis of being for so many years, so it is important to keep it off the streets and out of the hands of people who might buy it because it is easier to access then cannabis. Also, the fact that Colorado embraces legal cannabis is an even better protection against the threat of spice. When you have access to the real deal, who needs a dangerous substitute?
