More than four months after voters in Colorado and Washington State legalized recreational marijuana smoking, the Obama administration has yet to announce any plans to either tolerate those developments or continue to crack down on America's homegrown marijuana industry (to the presumed delight of the Mexican cartels).
But today, the federal government is announcing a significant policy change, declaring three popular forms of synthetic marijuana–commonly known as “spice”–as illegal. Specifically, the U.S. Justice Department has added three chemical compounds–UR-144, XLR11 and AKB48–to its list of so-called Schedule 1 narcotics which (allegedly, since marijuana's on that list) are dangerous to public health and have no medicinal value.
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In its notice, published in today's Federal Register but
first reported yesterday in The Hill, the feds referred to widespread and well-documented instances of synthetic marijuana causing serious health consequences to those who smoke it.
“Smoking mixtures of these substances for the purposes of achieving intoxication has been identified as a reason for numerous emergency room visits and calls to poison control centers,” says Justice. “Some of the adverse health effects reported in response to the abuse of synthetic cannabinoids include vomiting, anxiety, agitation, irritability, seizures, hallucinations, tachycardia, elevated blood pressure, and loss of consciousness.”
Sounds like a party!
Spice is nothing new to regular readers of Navel Gazing. Matt Coker reported that last July,
San Clemente shut down a smoke shop after confiscating a variety of bath salts (a synthetic hallucinogen) as well as spice, that had been labeled as smoking accessories. (The owner said he thought they were for cleaning pipes or taking a bath). The raid took place just days after the U.S. Senate passed a law outlawing the sale of the two substances.
The new scheduling is, ahem, scheduled to take effect in 30 days.
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Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).
