'SPICE' STILL LEGAL; WARNINGS ABOUND

"Got spice?" That was the big, clever marketing message on a banner
displayed by a Spokane-area convenience store when Sarah Denis drove
by.

Denis, a chemical dependency counselor at Daybreak Youth Services, a
Vancouver residential drug-treatment facility for teen boys, wondered
if the store owner knows what she's been learning recently: Spice and
its chemical cousins may still be legal -- but they can cause anxiety,
paranoia, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, vomiting, seizures
and other nasty health problems.

Sounds like a fun high, huh?

Synthetic cannabinoids, originally designed to mimic the effects of
marijuana for medical testing, have arrived in Clark County -- and
spread across the nation -- as a supposedly safe and legal alternative
to pot. You can buy it in local smoke shops and some convenience
stores, where it comes in little foil squares, labeled as incense and
stamped with the additional warning, "Not for human consumption." But
manufacturer, seller and buyer all know what it's really for.

It isn't detected by traditional urinalysis. Police and local
hospitals aren't reporting crime waves or emergency rooms swamped with
kids totally splattered on spice.

But Denis, who interviews teen boys on their way into Daybreak for
inpatient treatment, said she's heard that spice sparks some
distinctly unpotlike behaviors: rather than slowing down or mellowing
out the smoker, it can lead to a loss of impulse control and a serious
psychological need for more. There are anecdotal reports of kids
ransacking their homes for the money to buy it, she said.

"But some kids say it's not that way for them," she
added.

"The temptation to use it, and to think it's OK to use it, are pretty
strong," said Donna Wiench, Daybreak's development director. "They
tell us it's not a drug because it's not illegal and it's not addictive."

But synthetic cannabis has been banned across Europe and in several
states, including Oregon, which classified it as a Schedule 1 drug --
making sale and possession illegal -- just last month.

"I don't know why it's been banned in Oregon and not here," said
Wiench. "I think it's just a matter of time."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency noted as far back as April 2009 that
synthetic cannabis is on the market, masquerading as incense, under
names like "Spice Gold," "Spice Silver," "Spice Diamond," "K2,"
"Spike," "Genie" and "Yucatan Fire." The agency is looking into
banning it on the federal level -- but that can be a lengthy and
difficult process without a guaranteed outcome, especially given that
synthetic cannabis was first developed for, and remains quite useful
in, medical and pharmaceutical testing.

According to online sources, manufacturers initially claimed that
spice produces a mild, potlike high though a blend of legal, natural
herbs. But the chemical fingerprints of those herbs turned up missing
in lab analyses. Meanwhile, large amounts of synthetic chemicals were
detected -- indicating that it's impossible to know what's really in a
packet of spice and how any given user might react to it. It's been
reported that the synthetic chemicals are far more potent than the
psychoactive ingredients in marijuana.

The Daily Olympian recently reported on a youth who wound up in the
emergency room after smoking spice. His blood pressure was low and his
heart was racing. An emergency room physician said he could have died.
In Iowa, a teen stoned on synthetic cannabis experienced an extreme
panic attack and shot himself.

"We don't know enough about the human pharmacological effects of these
substances," The Daily Olympian was told by Wake Forest University
pharmacology professor Steve Childers, who conducts medical research
with synthetic cannaboids. "Anybody with any brains wouldn't use them."

And the Washington Poison Center recently put out a bulletin regarding
an increase in the use of synthetic marijuana.

"Some users report similar effects to marijuana, but many poison
centers have noted that patients tend to develop symptoms that bring
them to the ER, such as rapid heart rate, agitation, paranoid
behavior, high blood pressure, dilated pupils, and fever," the
bulletin said.

The Washington Poison Center also notes that new urinalysis tests have
been developed to detect spice.