Tag Archives: NYC

11/8/16

This Stuff Is not Weed

38945846 - illustration of a not allowed icon with a marijuana leaf

© Juan Pablo Gonzalez | 123rf.com

Like a snowball that begins rolling down from the very top of a hill, negative consequences from synthetic drugs have been building momentum for several years. LiveScience posted an article based on a CDC report that highlighted the increase of synthetic-cannabinoid overdoses. Between 2010 and 2015 there were a total of 456 synthetic-cannabinoid intoxications recorded by 101 US hospitals and clinics included in the study. While the overdoses from these substances are still a fraction of all drug overdoses in the US, their percentage has increased every year since 2010.

The CDC report was based on data gathered from the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC), a toxicology surveillance and research tool. The ToxIC Registry was established by the American College of Medical Toxicology in 2010. Of the 456 cases of synthetic-cannabinoid intoxication treated by physicians in the ToxIC, 277 reported synthetic cannabinoids were the only substance used. The findings of the CDC report are representative of what doctors in emergency departments from around the country are seeing.

Among the 456 cases, 70.6% were in persons aged 19-65 and 27.4% were in persons aged 13-18; 83.1% were male. The reported adverse effects were primarily cardiovascular-related (17.0%), pulmonary-related (7.6%) or central nervous system-related (66.1%).  The CNS symptoms included agitation, CNS depression or coma, and delirium/toxic psychosis. The annual percentage of cases increased significantly in all four US Census regions, except the South. “The largest overall increases during these periods took place in the Northeast, primarily driven by increases at the New York City sites.” See the chart below which was taken from the CDC report:

toxicThe CDC report mentioned a June 2015 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) for June 12, 2015 that found a 300% increase of telephone calls to poison centers related to synthetic cannabinoid use from January 2015 to April 2015. The report suggested that synthetic cannabinoids posed an emerging public health threat. The number of calls spiked dramatically in mid-April. Look at the report for a chart showing the spike from less than 100 calls per week in the third week of March 2015 to over 500 weekly in the third week of April 2015.

Then there are the “bath salts.” The New York Times published an article referring to Brooklyn users of K2, a synthetic cathinone (bath salts), as “zombies.” In an area around the subway station at Myrtle Avenue and Broadway, emergency workers transported 33 people with suspected K2 overdoses to the hospital in ONE DAY. Brian Arthur, who filmed and then posted what he saw on online said: “It’s like a scene out of a zombie movie, a horrible scene . . . . This drug truly paralyzed people.” While responders helped an unsteady man into an ambulance, another man nearby was slumped against a fire hydrant.

Pairs of police officers walked the blocks around Broadway and Myrtle Avenue, checking the vital signs of men they found unconscious. Anyone who was unresponsive was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance.

Keep in mind this was after legislation by The New York City Council last Fall banned synthetic cannabinoids and threatened businesses and owners who sold K2 with closings, hefty fines and jail time. So it seems that the synthetic drug trade in NYC simply switched to synthetic cathinones.

A 2012 article in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, “The Toxicology of Bath Salts,” provides some background information on the emergence of synthetic cathinones as a drug of abuse. Synthesis of cathinone derivatives occurred as early as the late 1920s. Methcathinone was synthesized in 1928 and mephedrene in 1929. While a few of the derivatives have been investigated for medical use, only bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) have been approved for a medical use in the US and Europe. Wellbutrin is approved to treat depression; Zyban is used as a smoking-cessation aide.

Numerous synthetic cathinone derivatives have become popular for use as “legal highs.” Exactly when these derivatives gained popularity amongst club goers and others seeking new drugs of abuse is difficult to pinpoint, but mentions in Internet drug forums began in 2007.

In “Synthetic Cathinones: A New Public Health Problem,” Karila et al. described the major clinical effects of synthetic cathinones and their impact on public health. Together with synthetic cannabinoids they account for more than two thirds of the New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) available. Again, cardiac psychiatric and neurological adverse effects are the most common ones requiring medical care. “These drugs, still not controlled by international laws, are often produced and used to mimic the effects of controlled drugs such as cocaine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), and methamphetamine.”

If you’re skeptical about what I’ve written so far, try this article from High Times, “What’s in Synthetic Cannabis and Why Is It So Dangerous?” In order to study the endocannabinoid system in the body, scientists created these compounds for research purposes. The author is quick to point out that synthetic cannabis does not contain cannabis or synthetic cannabinoids. While the compounds bind to cannabinoid receptors in the brain, they only have a “slight relation” to natural THC. “Doctors do not fully understand how most of these compounds interact with the body, and some can be extremely harmful and even deadly.”

The author suggested they would be better named: synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRA). THC is only a partial agonist of CB1 and CB2,the cannabinoid receptors, where SCRAs are designed to bind strongly to the receptors and exert THC-like effects. These effects can be 100 times more potent than cannabis. The unusually strong binding of SCRAs to cannabinoid receptors can produce unforeseen downstream effects in the brain and nervous system.

If you consume any of these chemicals, you are literally performing an experiment on your body, and a dangerous one at that. People have suffered from seizures, cardiac arrest, kidney failure, severe reduction in body temperature, etc. and doctors don’t know how it happens or who is more susceptible.

Not only are there many different classes of these compounds, each one of the general classes of compounds contains dozens of different related compounds. “Regulatory agencies play a game of cat and mouse with designer drug manufacturers as they constantly use different compounds to bypass laws.”  While the Us government continues to make different groups of SCRAs illegal, underground chemists seem to be one step ahead, making newer compounds that tend to be more toxic and harmful than the previous generation.

Steer clear of these dangerous substances, treat them like dangerous addictive drugs on par with methamphetamine, ecstasy pills and prescription narcotics. This stuff is not weed, and when your friends smoke it you should confront them about it and make them understand they are putting their lives at risk. Even if you need to pass a drug test, don’t use this stuff; even one toke of Spice can land you in intensive care and put you on a dialysis machine with kidney failure.

Let the fact sink in that what we just reviewed was a clear warning from High Times to avoid synthetic cannabinoids. Alternately, there are synthetic cathinones that can turn you into a zombie. Think about the consequences before you try some.

12/28/15

Weaponized Marijuana

hc-synthetic-marijuana-0926-20120925-001William Wells, a homeless man living in New York City, first started using K2 about a year ago. “My brain is connected to the chemicals,” he said. “It will have you running down the block. It will have you fighting yourself. It will have you getting very violent. It will have you living like a bum. . . . I wish I could stop, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop.” An East Harlem resident said that K2 was being sold 24 hours a day in the area. “Every day I see people doing it right there on the street. It makes them stuck. They stand in one place for hours at a time.” Read more from the original article by Matthew Speiser here.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation recently that banned the sale of synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as K2 or spice. The law also bans the sale of synthetic stimulants known as bath salts. Not only are there possible civil and criminal penalties, the legislation authorizes the city to close down businesses that violate the law twice in a three-year period. The New York Times reported in September 2015 that the proposed ban would include selling any drug marketed as synthetic marijuana and any imitations with effects similar to the synthetic cannabinoids.

Authorities did begin to crack down on the sale and distribution of these new psychoactive substances (NPS). Ten defendants were charged and 90 bodegas (convenience stores) were raided. These included six retail outlets on 125th Street in Harlem, which has become ground zero for K2 use among the homeless in the City. Nicholas Casey wrote how:

Crowds of up to 80 or 100 homeless people come in on buses from a nearby shelter on Randalls Island, drawn by heroin recovery clinics nearby, and spend the day there under the influence of this cheaper narcotic. The block between Park and Lexington Avenues appears at times to be a street of zombies.

Police raids on 125th Street in July of 2015 led to confiscations of more than 8,000 packets of K2. But many of the stores continued selling the drug. The sheer number of users on the block has left police officers edgy. “It quickly can become a kind of group mentality where the officers, or even multiple officers, are outnumbered,” according to Tom Harnisch, commander of the 25th Precinct. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton described the drugs as “weaponized marijuana.”  He said: “This is a scourge on our society, affecting the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and our most challenged citizens. It affects teenagers in public housing, homeless in the city shelter system, and it’s quite literally flooding our streets.”

The New York Daily News filmed a six-minute documentary,”K2 in New York City.” It opens with a 20 second shot of a guy catatonically zoned out on K2. A homeless man who sells K2 held up a packet of “Trippy,” saying: “I want Obama to see this too.”  Another person said it was ten times worse than heroin. Against the background of two police officers standing by a person crying out on the sidewalk, a graphic noted that: “Between April 2015 and September 2015 there were more than 4,700 K2-related emergency room visits in NY state compared to just 230 during the same period in 2014.” Another man said that was how he got through the day, dealing with his misery and pain by doing the drug.

A woman said: “Don’t do it. If people haven’t done it … if I know for a fact that you haven’t smoked it, I will not let you smoke it. I wouldn’t ruin somebody’s life like that.” NYC paramedic Robert Kelly said it seems to be effecting mentally ill homeless people in the shelter systems; people that are known drug users. “Unfortunately it’s cheap; it’s easy to get.” US Attorney Preet Bharara announced an operation that seized over 200 kilograms of chemicals and an estimated 275,000 packets of finished product that would have totaled more than 2,700 kilograms of spice. A conservative estimate of the street value of that amount of spice is over $30 million dollars.

The Fix described this joint DEA and NYPD operation as targeting the sale of the drugs in all five NYC boroughs. Part of the operation raided five processing facilities and warehouses used to store and distribute the drugs. More than 80 bodegas were searched as part of the overall operation. DEA Special Agent in Charge, James Hunt said: “Synthetic cannabinoids are anything but safe. They are a toxic cocktail of lethal chemicals. . . . By investigating and arresting manufacturers and distributors of ‘spice’ in the city, we have cut off the accessibility for those feeding the beast.”

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has an information page on K2 that describes some of the risks associated with K2 use. “Information for Consumers” said the most common adverse effects of K2 reported include: lethargy, confusion, drowsiness, respiratory depression, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia (increased heart rate), paranoid behavior, agitation, irritability, headache seizures, and loss of consciousness. Severe side effects could include acute renal failure and cardiovascular and central nervous system complications. “In rare instances, use of cannabinoids has been linked to death.”

John Lavitt opened his article for The Fix with a comment on how synthetic drug sales have allegedly fueled terrorism,  a claim which has some clear evidence for it. One of the name brands of synthetic marijuana named in The New York Daily News video described above, Scooby Snax, was involved in a DEA raid on a Birmingham Alabama warehouse in May of 2013. Sales from the product were linked to $40 million in wire transfers to Yemen. See “Strange Bedfellows: Terrorists and Drugs.” Also see “The Double-Edged Sword of Narco-Terrorism.”