People are now dying from what’s being called “synthetic marijuana” — the worst-possible collateral damage from marijuana prohibition. If marijuana were legal, no one would resort to smoking stuff that’s essentially potpourri (no pun intended) sprayed with lab-made chemicals.
While I understand the need for reporters to use shorthand rather than including a scientific essay within a news story, it’s worth noting that “mock marijuana” is a misleading phrase. When you see fake roses, it’s reasonable to call them “synthetic roses,” because everyone knows that plastic won’t be molecularly confused with plant material.
But when people hear “synthetic marijuana,” I worry that (older) folks will assume that it’s composed of molecules found in natural marijuana that were perhaps merely manufactured in a lab. (After all, the THC in prescription Marinol is manufactured in a lab, and that THC is actually identical to the THC found in natural marijuana. Surely, the phrase “synthetic marijuana” will cause some people to think that real marijuana is ultra-dangerous, when in fact it’s marijuana prohibition that’s ultra-dangerous.
When I smoked one brand of non-marijuana (K2) a few times a decade ago, my brain confirmed immediately that K2 isn’t the real thing. In fact, it’s not supposed to be, because military personnel — the principal purchasers of K2 in D.C. — chose to smoke that nonsense so that they could pass drug tests. Because THC is the only molecule in real marijuana that causes your urine to fail a drug test, it would actually be “bad” for military people if K2, Spice, and the like were to contain THC.
THC/marijuana can’t kill you, yet the federal government is steering our military heroes toward a second way of dying — now on and off the battlefield.
P.S. The real K2 — pun intended — is actually the second-highest mountain in the world. Not quite the highest. At least the psychoactive potpourri was branded accurately, eh?
Re K2 being accurate branding, no way! The “K2” I once smoked when I feared extreme legal repercussions from smoking the real thing was no 2nd-highest anything. It’s more like a painting of K2 or, hell, a painting of Mt. Everest. The only good thing about its effect was that it wore off relatively quickly.
Unfortunately I resorted to smoking this chemically laced damiana leaf due to legal issues with smoking marijuana. They used to sell it in the stores down here so to me it seem like it was legal. But it is a very highly addictive substance and was soon outlawed, but that still didn’t stop me from seeking it out. And it is still around and I’m seeing people on it walking around like pure death. Just another epidemic drug. And I’m tired of people calling it synthetic marijuana. There is no such animal. And the police cannot legally charge you with a false charge such as synthetic marijuana if it does not exist. Take it from me, I was charged with possession of synthetic marijuana, and the charge turned into possession of a controlled substance, which due to Statutes requires that you knowingly possess said said substance. So the dropped do to me having no possible way of of knowingly possessing the chemical that was sprayed on the leafy substance. True story. Defense is called elicit knowledge.