But there's a new scary spice in town, one every parent should know about, a marijuana wannabe that's been widely available to underage kids in convenience stores, smoke shops and over the Internet for just over a year now, unregulated and dangerous.
Marketed as Spice, K-2 or incense, local media first reported on it last March, after a group of north Fulton teens was hospitalized in serious to critical condition after using it.
Medical personnel and cops at the scene were stumped at the time by symptoms that put kids in intensive care: brain swelling, coma, high blood pressure, hallucinations, panic attacks and vomiting.
Tests for meth, pot and cocaine came up negative. That's part of the ultra big attraction to this made-in-China chemical cocktail, the kids tell me.
I'm also told by reliable sources that among high schoolers throughout Cobb is the belief that Spice is legal in Georgia (more on that in a minute) and that kids are assured by peers it's OK to experiment with the "natural herbs" which are, after all, right on the convenience store shelf.
Fortunately, the effects of using this relatively new substance are finally being documented, as measured by more stories of psychotic episodes, emergency room visits, deaths and calls to poison control centers around the country.
In 2009, there were only about 13 emergency calls related to Spice. In 2010, 2,863 calls were made after ingesting, smoking or doing who knows what with it.
According to news reports, the first 10 days of this year there were 69 calls to poison control centers related to spice.
In June, an 18-year-old Iowa teen committed suicide while experiencing a spice-induced anxiety attack.
A few weeks ago, I'm told by a local police friend, a man crazy on Spice stopped his brand new SUV in the middle of a busy Kennesaw intersection, jumped out (leaving the door open) and wandered through moving traffic, ranting, hallucinating and threatening police on the scene until he could be restrained.
England, France and Germany are among countries that have banned Spice and similar substances. Kansas was the first U.S. state to outlaw it after forensic scientists discovered its effects in late 2009.
Last year in Georgia, state Rep. Jay Neal (R-LaFayette) and state Sen. Ed Harbison (D-Columbus) were on top of the issue, shepherding H.B. 1309 all the way to Gov. Sonny Perdue's desk in July. Certain manufactured ingredients in spice, such as JWH-018 (which is five times more potent than marijuana's THC) were outlawed in Georgia.
Most kids have no idea. They say Spice can still be found everywhere. So how can this be?
Neal told me he talked to the GBI just last week and was told Spice's chemical ingredients have now apparently been re-worked by manufacturers overseas to get around many of the latest state bans.
"They're preying on our kids," Neal told me by phone. The manufacturer's persistence reminds me of the way our Taliban enemy changes tactics constantly in their efforts to kill more Americans.
So what was legal became illegal and is now legal once again, until lawmakers can catch up with the specifics. Neal says they intend to.
Meanwhile, parents are mostly ignorant. Kids are using spice in any case and telling themselves it's OKand legal. Don't kid yourself - users aren't all losers these days. They are athletes, straight A students and "nice" kids, younger and younger, ingesting God knows what and falling for the marketing of these products, at risk to their lives and long-term health.
Did I mention seven Naval Academy midshipmen were expelled last Thursday for using spice? What a waste.
Online, manufacturers hawk their product this way: "Product is stronger, cheaper, smoother, sexier and better than the rest. Not a marijuana substitute but used in magic and meditation rituals and should not be misused."
Wink, wink.
And "free direct residential delivery" to boot.
It's what we don't know, but the kids do.
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It sounds as though you want the government to step in and protect the health and well being of children.
Then again, that may cost too much and create more debt. We better let these small business owners keep selling their product without government interfering.
I am very concerned about the number of young people who are being charged with not-insignificant crimes these days, due to activities that we used to consider "kids being kids". I can see this spice stuff becoming another opportunity to arrest our kids...for being kids, if we are not careful.
Efforts, like yours, to educate the parents are key. Perhaps law makers and enforcers will also take note and find a solution short of jailing the kids. Please keep up the good work!
In my research, I didn't see much hysteria by anyone. Parents seem largely ignorant about this, and LE I spoke with said it's relatively new on their plate locally (since last summer). It was forensic doctors in Kansas, according to my research, who sounded the alarm to their state lawmakers. The European countries that've banned this (I didn't go in depth there) are usually more permissive, yet they took action long ago, so I don't know about hysteria. I read the DEA is still trying to classify the substance.
Got the idea from the kids. My kids have talked about this "psychotic substance" and know people who have been hospitalized. They and other smart kids are exposed to all kinds of drugs everywhere these days (they tell me that so many parents are smoking with their kids it's unreal) -- I asked around among different age groups at geographically different schools (Harrison, Pope, Lassiter, various southern universities) and found that the substance is widely available and kids think it can't harm them.
I simply thought that parents should be informed about this substance. We might know what marijuana looks like, but until recently I had no clue what this herbal stuff is. There is also another synthetic cocaine the GBI and lawmakers are talking about called "bath salts." Another topic for another day, but one most parents would not recognize if they saw. As the parent of four, all of this continues to concern me, but I wouldn't call my concern "hysteria." Being informed is the goal.
All the laws against "spice" will result in exactly this...good kids with "drug charges" or other disciplinary actions against them. It will not be the purveyors of the unwanted substance.
Frankly, the emergency room numbers you cite would seem very small compared to what I would have to guess is actual usage of this stuff by kids these days. So...is this just another Law Enforcement induced hysteria designed to give LE a more easy to police "illegal drug"? After all, chasing South American drug dealers in Georgia is HIGH RISK activity for LE...a substance popular with school kids and no violent drug gangs selling it sounds like a much preferred way to pursue the "war on drugs" and still come home.