Synthetic Cannabis Batch Sends 13 to San Diego Hospital

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]T[/dropcap]he menace called “spice” is still much too widely available. The concept is that smoking synthetic variants of cannabis helps users avoid failing a drug test, however, anytime someone consumes spice, they are rolling the dice. Thirteen people, including a 13-year-old, were taken to local San Diego hospitals because of the substance.

“It’s a manufactured substance and depending on who manufactured it, it could be of different qualities, different strengths,” SDPD Battalion Chief Mike Finnerty told NBC 7. “It could be that the current batch that these people are accessing is much stronger than what they are used to or it could have some other unknown chemical in it that’s not normally in it.”

The latest wave of victims say the drug caused bloody noses, seizures and vomiting. According to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, two individuals are currently in critical condition.

Banning individual chemicals does little to curb spice use. Spice, which is cheaper than high-quality cannabis, attracts America’s poorest. According to research from the New England Journal of Medicine, spice overdoses and deaths are higher than ever.

In reality the drug primarily consists of variants of JWH-018, a chemical that was mostly used as an Asian fertilizer until around 2004. The chemical(s) are usually sprayed on Damiana and other herbs.

The sale of synthetic spice has been illegal in California since 2012, but that hasn’t stopped business owners from selling variants. Spice laws have perhaps made the situation worse because manufacturers are forced to constantly change the recipe. While drug testing for cannabis especially in medically and recreationally legal states needs some legislative updates, it’s definitely not worth resorting to alternative “designer drugs” consisting of dangerous and inconsistent effects.