In Illinois, synthetic marijuana blamed for 2 horrific deaths from bleeding
54 other cases of poisoning also reported; rat poison discovered in the drug mixture.
Illinois public health officials are sounding the alarm about synthetic marijuana that is being distributed in the Chicago area and the central part of the state. Users have been hospitalized with severe bleeding, and now fatalities are being reported.
Synthetic cannabinoids, also known as K2 or Spice, has been linked to 56 cases in which people in the state experienced severe bleeding after using the substance, officials with the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement. The users were hospitalized — and two of them died — after coughing up blood, finding blood in their urine or bleeding from their noses or gums, officials said.
State health officials are struggling to find the source and a way to stop it.
“While there have been cases of adverse effects from synthetic cannabinoids, we have not seen the severe bleeding on this scale,” Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, said Tuesday in a statement to The Washington Post. “We continue to investigate cases as they come in to try to identify what product they may have used and where they obtained it. However, synthetic cannabinoids are unregulated and identifying a source or sources is difficult.
An owner of a Chicago convenience store and two employees have been charged with selling the substance, containing rat poison, which has been linked to the reported deaths.
Federal prosecutors have charged 48-year-old Fouad Masoud and 44-year-old Jad Allah, both of suburban Justice, and 44-year-old Adil Khan Mohammed of Chicago with conspiring to distribute and sell a controlled substance. Federal prosecutors say U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents made undercover buys of the synthetic cannabinoids at Masoud’s West Side Chicago store.
Federal officials say synthetic cannabinoids were packaged in sealed containers and labeled with such names as ‘Matrix,’ ‘Blue Giant,’ and ‘Crazy Monkey.’ Testing of the products revealed brodifacoum, a toxic substance frequently used in rat poison.
The packaging is designed for the teen and young adult market. A PBS News Hour video, which features three young people who consumed synthetic marijuana, offers evidence of how different the material is from the real plant.
In addition to the rat poison, the synthetic marijuana contains a compound that mimics the active ingredient in pot, but are much more aggressive in their response to the body’s receptors.
Contrary to what many think, synthetic marijuana is not one drug, and it is very different from tetrahydrocannabinol (aka THC, the main compound in natural marijuana). Synthetic marijuana is a “designer drug,” a chemical engineered to create the same effects as an illegal drug, but one that is different enough to avoid drug laws.
Synthetic cannabinoids (substances mimicking marijuana) work on the same brain receptors as THC, but can bind to the receptor up to 100 times more tightly than THC. Most were actually developed for research purposes so that scientists could better understand the role of THC receptors in the brain. Unlike marijuana, they have no reported potential for medical use. Eighty-four new synthetic cannabinoids were identified by the National Forensic Laboratory Information System in 2015 alone (for comparison, there were only two in 2009). These chemicals, all vastly different from each other, do not cause identical responses in the brain.
And because the “drug” is actually a highly variable mixture, the effects of the body can be quite different even if the same “brand” is used.
First and foremost, these are “psychoactive” substances, which cause an altered mental perception of the world. This high can be associated with irritability, confusion, sleepiness, dizziness and inability to concentrate. At worst, they cause hallucinations (fives times more often than THC), suicidal thoughts and violent behavior. They are also far more likely than marijuana to cause other symptoms like vomiting and muscle breakdown. They can lead to heart problems such as fast heart rate, high blood pressure and even heart attacks. There have been reports of rapid and complete kidney failure related to specific strains of synthetic marijuana.
Hopefully, there will be no more deaths from this material. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty of ways to die horribly in Chicago already.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Those people that were charged for selling the stuff, with last names Masoud, Allah, and Mohammed, are they Russians?
Russian Muslims.
There you have it kids.
Only use organic marijuana….
Puff the hallucinating dragon.
That said, keep it organic and legal, and address effects as they become a societal concern. We do it for socially/sexually liberal behaviors and effects. We can certainly afford to do it for drugs and minority use.
Synthetic dope sounds like something out of Refer Madness
Read up a bit on that stuff in the rat poison, the brodifacoum. Nasty stuff, pretty much a super anticoagulant, which causes those poisoned by it to die by massive internal bleeding. Thankfully it’s easily treatable, but the treatment after the initial hospital stay can be a prolonged one: up to several months of taking a special vitamin K supplement up to 4 times daily. The poison can apparently linger in the body for quite a while! Apparently the stuff can be absorbed through the skin too so if you’re going to be using any rat poison with this in it I would advise wearing gloves when handling it.
I buy 5 gallon pails full of the extruded wax impregnated rat poison, it lasts indefinitely in wet areas.
Many years ago I had a pregnant German Shepard manage to climb into a pickup truck bed, even though the tailgate was up, she ate two pounds of the the wax poison. I did not know about until after she started labor. The first two pups were DOA, three more were alive. I took them to a vet, but in spite of treatment they all died.
In any event, it seems reasonable to feed Muslim criminals like these the stuff. Dogs have value, those criminals do not.
Remembering the good ol’ days when you could tell Columbian Gold , Red Bud, & the various Sensimilla apart by sight, smell, taste, & potencies 😉
You sound experienced. Like a sommelier!
All I remember is not remembering much after walking down some halls in my dorm.
It was the Jack, Jim, & Jose that made me forget 🙂
I’ll have a Sprite.
100s of billions of taxpayer dollars spend on “Just Say No TO Drugs”. Money down a “rathole”.
My thoughts exactly. How much national treasure must we expend –down the rat hole — in attempts to save people from themselves?
We could completely kill illegals drug sales by having facilities for users where they can consume all the drugs they want. I think that might speed up the process. Some people are defective, and often they cannot be fixed. I think public policy should be to give them a choice between treatment and unlimited drugs, allowing nature to follow its natural course, evolution in action.