AP IMPACT: Synthetic drugs send thousands to ER

[abelenkpe]

AP IMPACT: Synthetic drugs send thousands to ER

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110407/ap_on_re_us/us_synthetic_drugs_poisoning

NDIANOLA, Iowa – Until he tried a marijuana look-alike product called "K2," David Rozga's most dubious decision was getting a Green Bay Packers tattoo on his shoulder.

Then the 18-year-old athlete and band standout got high on the fake pot last June and complained to a friend "that he felt like he was in hell," his father said.

Though he had never suffered from depression, the teenager went home, found a shotgun and killed himself — one of at least nine U.S. deaths in the last year that authorities suspect were caused by synthetic products designed to mimic marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs.

(more at link)

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Please warn your loved ones about this stuff.

Can't help but think perhaps this wouldn't happen if we'd just legalize pot?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Oh, oh!

:scared:


/s

[tridim]

2. And the war on drugs takes another life.

Prohibition kills.

[anarch]

3. I absolutely don't understand "synthetic pot"

that's like "synthetic tomatoes". Marijuana is a plant; it grows out of the ground. We're not quite living in the dystopian world of Soylent Green yet...we can still eat actual strawberries and so on.

[jmowreader]

4. Let me help you to understand

Synthetic marijuana is also known as "herbal incense." It is a herb--they could use oregano, and I think some of these mixtures DO--that's been sprayed with an indole compound called JWH-018, which produces an intoxication that's similar to that of marijuana.

The interest in it is, while it produces a pot-like high it is not detectable on a THC test because chemically JWH-018 looks absolutely nothing like THC or any of THC's products of metabolism so it won't show up on a piss test for pot. It will show up on a test for the JWH compounds (JWH-018 and JWH-025), and they've got these tests now.

[Jamastiene]

5. Nature gave us those natural drugs to use for a reason.

They have their purpose. We make those illegal and people go for synthetic crap that destroys them. It makes no sense. Yes, we should legalize marijuana. It would stop needless agony and suffering all over the country...and these senseless deaths.

[eShirl]

6. the equivalent of people going blind from bad bathtub gin during Prohibition