Synthetic marijuana is a man-made substance used by young people to find a high very similar to natural marijuana. Synthetic marijuana is most often plant material that has been sprayed with an active ingredient (a synthetic cannabinoid) which is then either smoked or eaten.
For a time, the drugs were sold to kids at local markets and convenience stores until the Drug Enforcement Agency stepped in back in 2011 and made the most common active ingredients in synthetic marijuana controlled substances. Now, the drugs are harder to buy, but young people are finding them and are continuing to use them despite the dramatic health risks.
These drugs are often sold under names like Spice, Mr Smiley, K2, Red Dawn or Blaze. Kids who use the synthetic drugs may be fooled into thinking that man-made marijuana is somehow safer than the naturally occurring drug, but that is untrue. Many young people are finding themselves in a hospital bed after using the drugs.
To avoid criminal prosecution, the chemical make-up of synthetic marijuana tends to change regularly. Nonetheless, the five most common ingredients used to manufacture them were listed as controlled substances back in 2011. This means that the substances are either so dangerous or have such a high risk for addiction that they are not to be dispensed without a doctor’s prescription.
To the known illegal chemicals, many other unknown substances are frequently added. This makes it especially difficult for emergency room physicians attempting to diagnose and treat young people who are brought into the hospital after using something like Spice.
There are some fairly common side effects to synthetic marijuana use and hospitals have seen it all. The drugs are known to cause aggression, agitation, slurred speech, a trance-like state (catalepsy) and heavy sweating. Most kids also present with an increased heart rate as well.
The problem for emergency room doctors is multiplied. Little is known about the man-made drugs and certainly it is impossible to know what “extra” ingredients were added to the mix. It is not unusual for young people to arrive with heavy sweating, elevated heart rates and obvious confusion. Sometimes kids have their eyes open but are unresponsive (catatonic). Other times patients are aggressive and hard to control. Many young people have trouble speaking, have lost motor function or hallucinate.
Most often, a few hours of intravenous treatment restores normal function, but doctors worry about the long-range effects of using these kinds of drugs. The adolescent brain is particularly sensitized to drugs, having a temporary surplus of the brain receptors stimulated by them. No one is quite certain what taking synthetic marijuana will do to a young person’s immune system, what cancer-causing agents he/she may have ingested, how serious memory impairment may be and even whether or not permanent psychosis might result.
The dangers of synthetic marijuana are frighteningly real and yet young people continue to seek out and use these drugs. A 2011 National Institute on Drug Abuse survey of 15,000 12th graders found that 11 percent of them had used K2. In 2010, the Poison Control Center reported 4,500 calls pertaining to synthetic marijuana but by 2011 the number of calls had risen to 7,000. Hospitals report that emergency rooms are seeing young people with alarming symptoms that cannot always be explained, but which are often suspected of being related to the drugs. In some cases, kids admit to using the man-made marijuana.
Parents should bring up the subject with their teens and make them aware that the known ingredients in synthetic marijuana are not safe. In fact, the commonly used substances are not fit for humans to consume according to our own FDA. Just as dangerous, or maybe even more so are the unknown ingredients which are added to synthetic marijuana. Lastly, moms and dads should explain to their teen the reasons why their brain is uniquely vulnerable to the ravages of drug use.
