Americans turn to dangerous synthetic marijuana to evade drug tests
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Makers of ‘fake weed’ continually alter its chemical makeup to skirt laws, but users face serious dangers, from kidney failure to stroke.
A man comes into the emergency room in Jackson, Mississippi. Six-foot-four, 240lbs. “Solid, brick muscle”, recalls Dr Robert Galli, a professor of emergency medicine and toxicology at the University of Mississippi medical center (UMMC) in Jackson.
“This big guy was fumbling around in the street, he was rolling around in the grass, he had no shirt on, his pants and underwear were down to his shoes, and he’s flopping around in the rain with about 15 people taking videos of him.”
Someone called 911. First the fire department arrived, followed by police, then paramedics, who ascertained from the surrounding crowd that the man smoked “Spice”.
Spice is known as fake weed or synthetic marijuana because it grabs hold of the same receptors in the brain. But the lab-made powder bears little resemblance to the plant Americans increasingly see as benign.
And because synthetic marijuana is ever evolving, standard urine drug screenings don’t detect it. Most confirmed poisonings are ferreted out by epidemiologists, after the bizarre symptoms land users in the hospital.
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