Pubdate: Fri, 03 Jun 2011
Source: Patriot-News, The (PA)
Copyright: 2011 The Patriot-News
Contact: http://www.pennlive.com/mailforms/patriotletters/
Website: http://www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1630
Author: Matt Miller
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/synthetic+marijuana

WIDENING USE OF SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA AND BATH SALTS CONCERNS LOCAL AUTHORITIES

One of the first calls Mazzitti & Sullivan Counseling Services 
handled Tuesday was from a distraught mother.

Her son had spent the Memorial Day weekend getting high on bath 
salts, a legal, readily available and worrisome intoxicant often 
described as "synthetic cocaine."

"He was having a paranoid break with reality," said Andrew Sullivan, 
the Harrisburg-based counseling firm's president.

That's just one episode in an epidemic of synthetic drug use that's 
growing with frightening speed locally and nationally, Sullivan said 
Friday at a public forum hosted by Dauphin County Drug and Alcohol Services.

Mavis Nimoh, agency administrator, said the forum aimed to "ratchet 
up" awareness of the peril of rising use, especially among children, 
of bath salts with names like "Snow Leopard" and "Zoom" and synthetic 
marijuana known as "K2" and "Spice."

"Obviously, this is an extremely serious issue, one that's been 
sensationalized, but it's also real," county Commissioner George 
Hartwick III said.

Bath salts and other synthetic drugs that are sparking fears aren't 
regulated by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, nor are they 
detectable with standard drug tests.

Many come from questionable Asian sources and are sold at head shops, 
some gas stations and via the Internet, Sullivan told the crowd of about 40.

He said they might be ruining the minds of the kids, and sometimes 
even middle-aged adults, who use them.

Bath salts are suspected in several deaths nationally and reportedly 
can trigger suicidal thoughts, chest pains, jumps in heart rate and 
blood pressure and hallucinations.

"If this was an FDA-approved drug and it was having these effects ... 
it would be pulled off the market," Sullivan said.

Recent midstate police incidents involving synthetic drugs include:

* In April, a 38-year-old Lebanon woman was charged with being high 
on bath salts while driving with an 18-month-old child in the back 
seat of her car. Police said witnesses reported the woman drove 
erratically, ran a red light and was banging her head on the steering wheel.

* In March, police said a 31-year-old man intoxicated by bath salts 
broke into a home in East Hanover Twp., Lebanon County, and damaged 
two cars, including a marked state police cruiser, because he thought 
he was being chased by electricity.

The state House has passed a bill to ban the sale of bath salts, K2 
and several other synthetics. That measure is before the Senate.

Several district attorneys, some of them local, are eyeing stop-gap 
regional prohibitions. Sullivan said a ban imposed in northeastern 
Pennsylvania prompted a major drop in emergency room visits linked to 
unregulated synthetic drugs.

Still, he said the problem can't be legislated away, that only 
parental and community vigilance can curb it.

Medical marijuana advocates Ava Berg and Libby Belgrave said bans won't work.

"If you make them illegal, that adds to the thrill," Berg said. 
"You're talking about prohibition. Prohibition didn't work before."

Belgrave said that if the current synthetics are banned, suppliers 
will simply devise new ones to skirt the law.

Robert Canidate of the New Beginnings youth programs, said the 
epidemic must be tackled as a "behavior modification problem.

"We know it's affecting our children's minds," he said. "We should 
continue to pull together as a community."

Harrisburg Area Community College student Jonathan Branch, a member 
of the county's Youth Advisory Board, suggested that an appeal be 
made to the consciences of the sellers.

"What if we educate the head shops?" he asked. "Maybe they'd be less 
willing to sell it."

Nimoh said community outreach is key. "We're watching and waiting to 
see where this goes, but we want to be proactive," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom