SHOALS–“I’m 18 years old. I’m sleeping with my mother because I was afraid I was going to die in my sleep, if I even went to sleep. I couldn’t stop crying – not at home, not at my friends’ house, and not at school,” said a Lauderdale County teen about the effects she continues to suffer from her use of synthetic marijuana, or ‘spice’.

What is this new drug and how are our young people being affected by it? That’s exactly what the Lauderdale County Children’s Policy Council wants to know.

At a recent luncheon the council’s S.A.V.E. (Substance Abuse and Violence Education) committee pulled local professionals together for an open discussion in determining how synthetic marijuana is harming the children in our community and what can be done to help.

Kimberly Morris, PHP Coordinator with Bradford Health Services in Madison, told audience members that spice is 500-700 times stronger than marijuana. It is very dangerous and highly addictive. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, synthetic marijuana ranks as the second most frequently used illicit substance among high school seniors.

Spice is manufactured by treating ‘botanicals’ with a synthetic THC powder, and using acetone as a binding agent. The substance is being widely touted by unsuspecting youths as “legal weed.” Detective Tim Glover, director of the Lauderdale County Drug Task Force, informed attendees that “The powder [synthetic marijuana] is not inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Businesses have gotten away with selling it by putting a ‘not for human consumption’ label on the product,” said Glover. “Not only are they using synthetic THC powder, but these backroom drug manufacturers are also using a ‘psychedelic powder’, 5 MeO-Dalt, which is banned from being used with animals. They think that it’s okay to sell this stuff to our kids.”

Hundreds of youths in our community have been exposed to this dangerous new drug known by many different names. Synthetic marijuana is packaged and marketed to children using colorful packaging labels such as “K2”, “Dead Man Walking”, “Oh Yea”, and many other names which draw their attention. Use of the drug by young people skyrocketed over the past year. Until recently, local convenience stores strategically placed the product at child’s eye level and required no form of identification for purchase. Chris Connolly, Lauderdale County District Attorney, reported, “In October of 2011 we received a Governor’s Order that allowed local law enforcement to seize imitation controlled substances from the gas stations and convenience stores here. But that order only carried us for 90 days.

According to Detective Glover, “Three hundred pounds of the drug were seized at one business location in Lauderdale County alone.” Connolly reports that his office is working with the District Attorneys Association of Alabama to support a legislative bill that would make the possession of the substance a Class C Felony and the sale of the substance a Class B Felony. Connolly reports that the bill is scheduled to be one of the first to come before legislators in February. “We want this drug out of the hands of our children,” he said.

Research shows that due to the constant change and variance of the synthetic THC chemical used (known as JWH compounds) – the substance could not previously be detected on a drug test. Essentially, drug manufacturers were altering the compounds to side-step any detection in a drug screen. Because of the historical inability to detect the synthetic THC, children used this readily available alternative instead of marijuana because it didn’t show up on a drug test. In September 2011, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency used its emergency scheduling authority to ban the sale of the chemicals used to manufacture K2 and Spice. Labs used this ban to develop both a urine and oral test that can detect these compounds in “spice.”

The dangerous side effects from the ingestion of ‘spice’ range from stroke, hallucinations, panic/ anxiety disorders, tremors, headaches, blurred vision, and many other symptoms that are acute or could be life-long. “The side effects of this drug are different for each user. Because few people are coming forth to tell the healthcare system about using it, we’re just now beginning to learn how dangerous it is,” says Morris.

S.A.V.E. Committee members encourage parents and community members to educate children about the dangers of drugs and to take an active role in the lives of the children around them. The Lauderdale County Children’s Policy Council is a voluntary group of community members working under the direction of Circuit Court Judge Billy Jackson to enhance the availability of services to children in Lauderdale County, Alabama. For more information on how to get involved in the Children’s Policy Council call Heather Haynes, Program Director at 256-712-5413.