By Tyler Goucher

Reporter

A new drug has spawned recently within the last few years, which has been a leading cause in the increase of drug-related hospital visits and overdoses. The drug in question is Spice or Synthetic cannabis.

Spice is a designer drug that contains legal herbs that are sprayed with harmful, synthetic chemicals. These chemicals are responsible for producing the marijuana-like effects that users crave. With prices ranging from $10 to $20 a gram, it is a relatively inexpensive way to get intoxicated, making it a cheap and addictive alternative to its illegal counterpart.

The manufacturers of these designer drugs are able to get away with selling them because the ingredients are constantly changing and the product’s literature explains that it’s not meant for human consumption, making it hard for the DEA to crack down on them. However, the DEA has been able to move many of the main ingredients of spice to the Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Some of these ingredients include: CP-47, JWH-073, and Cannabicyclohexanol.

According to one user, 19-year-old Jordan Basinger, spice is much more dangerous than what the manufacturers claim.

“Sometimes I freak out when I smoke too much cause my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest,” Basinger claims. “But I continue to smoke it because it gets me high and I don’t have to worry about failing drug tests.”

This is yet another reason why more and more spice users are sprouting up, most companies and corporations do not include synthetic marijuana as a part of their pre-employment drug screenings. To users, this is a loophole in the system that allows them to still get high while chasing the American dream.

Well, that chase will be short lived according to many doctors and scientists who have been doing extensive research on the long-term side effects of this dangerous designer drug. Just this month, Nephrologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, discovered that there is a direct link between long-term kidney damage and the use of synthetic marijuana. In the study, four test subjects were shown to have experienced many negative side effects after a nine-week period of continual use; some of these side effects included nausea and extreme abdominal pain. After more extensive testing, doctors were able to find some type of acute kidney injury in all four of the test subjects.

Spice is not only linked to kidney damage, it is also known to cause seizure-like symptoms such as tachycardia. According to a former spice user, 21-year-old Tim Wombacher, his brother experienced seizure-like symptoms after only a small dose. “I remember, not long after the smoke session, my brother started to hold his chest and acted like he couldn’t breathe,” Wombacher explained. “We were worried that the spice might have been laced or something.” He went on further to explain how his brother was taken to the hospital and luckily came out of the experience alive.

These stories and others like them shed insight on the dangers and concerns of synthetic designer drugs and the impact they are having on society.