Synthetic Marijuana Issues in Phoenix
According to the police officials, synthetic marijuana is on the rise. Not just in Phoenix either. A lot of major U.S. cities have recordings of the rise in synthetic marijuana. There’s been a surge of overdoses according to police officials. Even, a rise in violent crime.
The situation is becoming pretty severe. It actually escalated enough that police chiefs had a meeting in Washington has called for development or field tests that can hopefully help the police figure out who the suspects are on the synthetic marijuana.
Police say that the Marijuana is sold in “slickly marketed packets” with names like K2, Scooby Snax and Spice. The drugs are crazy and not smart to be messed with, being that they are made up of a “variety of chemicals” and actually have very little to do with real marijuana.
Chemicals in Synthetic Marijuana
The chemicals that are found in the packets vary. Even the packets that are identically branded have very different ingredients. Most users probably don’t even know what the heck they are smoking.
July the poison control centers in the United States had tallied 4,377 reports of people who suffered from the effects of synthetic marijuana. Last year the numbers were a little lower at 3,682, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
The users of the synthetic marijuana are now finding their way onto “police crime blotters”. There was a survey of thirty-five major city police departments across the United States has found out that thirty percent have contributed to some of the violent crimes related to the fake marijuana use.
William Bratton who is the New York Police commissioner has said during a press conference, that he’s calling it “weaponized marijuana”. He also said that it is a growing and huge concern.
William Bratton’s Statement:
These dangerous products do not belong on store shelves within our neighborhoods and are a threat to public health.
The New York Police Department has also said that there has been more than one hundred overdoes cases in just one month at the Bellevue Hospital trauma center.
In Washington the Metropolitan Police Department has said that there was a man who they believed to be suffering from the effects of synthetic marijuana. The man was on the synthetic marijuana and actually committed a gruesome, fatal stabbing on a metro train. The stabbing wasn’t a secret…he did it in plain sight of anyone who was on the subway on July 4th. The toxicology reports are not public at this time.
The EMS Department has said that their reports show that they have transported 439 people who were suffering from suspected synthetic marijuana overdoses in June.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, most of the synthetic marijuana actually comes from China. It’s then imported to the United States.
Law Enforcement have been trying to crack down on the synthetic marijuana situation. Convenience stores have even pulled items from their shelves. Now users have to use/know code names to get the drugs from store clerks or they can buy it from the street dealers.
The drugs can be very harmful. Causing hallucinogenic effects, nausea, agitation, seizures, and can even get as bad as causing suicidal or violent reactions. The DEA says that the synthetic Marijuana falls under a “broad label of depressant-hallucinogens”. It actually has trouble classifying due to the several different types of chemicals that the manufacturers are using.
Homeless populations are on the front of heavy overdoses in some of the cities. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington is planning to start giving the homeless shelters presentations about the harmful usage of this drug and other drugs.
Of course the drugs are illegal. However, it’s hard to stop all use of the many different chemicals used to make the synthetic drugs.
There’s some speculation that police officers are looking to “blame” the synthetic drug for the heavy spikes in crime. It’s a big problem in several different communities.
Washington’s Metro Police Chief, Cathy Lanier’s Statement:
In some cities, synthetic cannabinoids is a huge issue, in other cities its just beginning to grow. Its connection to violence, that’s a gap that can be fixed.
Marijuana Drug Bust
Drug busts around the border are sadly not uncommon. A recent find by the Customs and Border Protection officers lead to the arrest of two different men. They used “get away” cars to hide a crime.
In July, there were two separate incidents where officers at the Port of Douglas had to inspect as well as confiscate two different cars. Both hiding a total of two hundred pounds of marijuana!
A man from Douglas, who was seventy-years old at the time, got arrested after officers found forty-three pounds of marijuana in the car’s bench set after they inspected the Ford truck he was driving.
The officers also made an arrest against a sixteen year old male from Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. This was after they also inspected his Pontiac Sedan vehicle and found over one-hundred and fifty-six pounds of marijuana hidden throughout the whole car. Who knew a Pontiac could hold that much?
The drugs and of course, the vehicles had to be seized. The two men then got arrested and taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations .
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