Fake Pot Gets A Ban

 

I am sure many people are aware of the "legal weed" substance that was popping up everywhere around the country and leading to many hospital visits by people that had used it, but in cased you missed it, here is a little info because thankfully the DEA used its emergency powers to shut it down.  The DEA has banned K2 and Other “Fake Pot” Products.  The reasons for this becomming an issue was that it was a legal substance that mimics the effects of marijuana.  Although I don't know much about the addictive properities of this chemical, I do know that many people were getting sick and there were even some reported deaths like 19-year-old Dominique Darrell Tate who died due to use of K2. 

K2 is a mixture of herbs and spices which is then sprayed with a chemical agent similar to marijuana that makes people high. People who smoke the synthetic herbal concoction claim it has 10 times the potency of pot.  K2 is linked to hallucinations, higher heart rate, loss of consciousness, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychotic episodes.  The agency and the Department of Health and Human Services are still trying to determine whether the chemicals should be permanently added to the federal list of controlled substances, considered unsafe, highly abused and without medical use.

Most of the hospital visits include effects such as a psychotic state of mind that can get you involuntarily placed in a psychiatric hospital where you are either drugged or electroshocked into submission.  Pharmacudical companies have been looking for ways to produce similar feelings that THC would give you but without the illegal aspect of the cannabis plant and its lovely THC chemical which is actually what gets you high.  "Even the modern father of synthetic grass, drug researcher, John Huffman, warns of the dangers of fake weed. Dr. Huffman has made it very clear that the research papers he published contain absolutely no evidence or information to show fake weed is safe to use. He compares using fake weed as deadly as playing Russian roulette and not to mess with it."  This is also the first time the DEA has used its emergency powers to stop the use of something since MDMA or ecstasy leaked out of the psychiatry field for recreational use.  As of today the "fake pot" has been placed in the same category as heroin.

This K2 compound was first created in the mid-1990s in the lab of organic chemist John W. Huffman of Clemson University, who studies cannabinoid receptors. He's not sure how the recipe for what is named JWH-018 (his initials) got picked up, but he did publish details on a series of compounds including JWH-018 in a book chapter. Even before that book came out, he recalls learning that in China and Korea people were selling the compound as a plant growth stimulant.  As for where it was first smoked or used as a recreational drug, Huffman thinks perhaps somewhere in Europe. "Apparently somebody picked it up, I think in Europe, on the idea of doping this incense mixture with the compound and smoking it," Huffman told LiveScience. "You can get very high on it. It's about 10 times more active than THC," the active ingredient in marijuana.  From a chemist's perspective, that means K2 has an affinity for the cannabinoid brain receptor (CB1) that's about 10 times greater than THC. For the less chemically inclined, it means you can smoke a lot less K2 to get just as high. The compound works on the brain in the same way as marijuana's active ingredient THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. Both compounds bind to the CB1 receptors, which primarily affect the central nervous system. JWH-018 also binds to the peripheral brain (CB2) receptors, which are involved in the immune system, Huffman said. Since JWH-018 or K2 acts like marijuana, you'd expect to see the same effects, including sleepiness, relaxation, reduced blood pressure, and at high doses, hallucinations and delusions. While some patients between the ages of 14 and 21 were showing up with hallucinations, other symptoms, such as increased agitation and elevated blood pressure and heart rates, didn't match up with marijuana. Further testing is needed, but the symptoms, such as fast heart beat, dangerously elevated blood pressure, pale skin and vomiting suggest that K2 is affecting the cardiovascular system of users. It also is believed to affect the central nervous system, causing severe, potentially life-threatening hallucinations and, in some cases, seizures.  In addition to the compound being made without strict quality control or any regulation, as far as anyone knows, the compound itself has never been tested on humans. And when it was tested on mice, Huffman said, the animals were euthanized at the end of the experiment, so scientists don't even know how it affects mice long-term. "And mice are not humans," Huffman said.

 

As long as people want to alter their consciousness, they will find a way to do it....