K2, a Potent Drug, Casts a Shadow Over an East Harlem Block
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Here's a recent video from Vice on Spice use in the UK (Spice is just the brand name, it sounds like it's basically the same as K2, though the chemicals involved evolve over time so perhaps it's better to say they're in the same group of drugs):
Before I watched this I'd heard synthetic drugs were dangerous, what surprised me was how addictive they appeared to be (people in the video compared its addictiveness to heroin).
And as for 'better'.... Is Thunderbird train 'better' than beer? To the guy on under the bridge, maybe I guess.
Regular people often have horrible experiences with it, ranging from just really uncomfortable experiences to full psychotic episodes. It's not benign and relatively harmless like cannabis usually is.
This too shall pass.
Is the weed situation much more lax in the UK than in the US?
If you get caught, more often than not it is confiscated / thrown away.
Same for growing for personal (no scales, no baggies, no tick list at the property, no "sorting a few mates out" - actually personal), a few plants and nothing will happen, at worst a few hours of community service
And a criminal record, and never being able to travel to the USA or various other countries again for the rest of your life.
Nothing big...
You have a funny idea of decriminalisation.
Weed is a class B drug, some people get tested for it some don't know where to get it. There is probably a very small market for synthetics in the UK, were weed legal, but I doubt it would amount to much.
I say this as someone mildly involved in the UK RC scene who knows a few users. Most of them would switch to the real thing in a heartbeat were it legalised.
Other drugs in class B are: Amphetamines, barbiturates, cannabis, codeine, ketamine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones (eg mephedrone, methoxetamine)
Theoretical sentence for possession is Up to 5 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
And theoretical sentence for distribution is Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
This specialist solicitor has some case reports of mostly large quantity: http://www.mjreedsolicitors.co.uk/news/cannabis-cases/cannab...
So we're nothing like the US (where simple possession could get you a life sentence) but it's wrong to say that possession of small amounts of cannabis is ignored in England.
EDIT: spice is popular because it wasn't being tested for in prisons, while cannabis was; and because it was legal.
To be fair, the life sentences are due to the idiodic "Three Strikes" laws (I really wonder why those aren't considered double-jeopardy). I don't think you can go to prison for life for simple possession in any state otherwise.
[1] And I should say I'm not talking about the legal drugs - alcohol, tobacco, cannabis - but there's a problem with at least one of those too.
Do you mean "narcotic users", or is this some strange word pun?
People who use this stuff regularly who also hold down jobs tend to use the tiniest pinch. Most of what's on sale is so massively over-strength that it's extremely unpleasant if you're not very careful.
Until you get used to it that is. The people in the article are used to it.
They only smoked a small amount, hearing that it was quite potent, so nobody had a "bad trip" or anything but they all mentioned how such a thing would be easy. I've had anxiety attacks from smoking too much regular old cannabis in the past so I can imagine how a drug with similar (but stronger) effects could easily go from being super baked to the worst of the paranoia and anxiety you may have experienced with too much strong cannabis.
edit: another issue is the range of potency. With normal "bud" cannabis, there's only so strong it's likely to be. When you're talking about some solution sprayed on plant material for smoking, the dosage can be much harder to determine without trying some first. I could probably take one puff of the world's strongest weed and there would be an upper limit to how stoned that could make me. With anything "laced" or concentrated and sprayed, you could be getting several times the desired dose with even a few puffs.
yeah I know, it's easily possible to have more than you're comfortable with...
While I wouldn't want anyone getting into synthetic cannibinoids like in the article... If you don't understand this at all, if you don't understand why people enjoy drugs and drink, that makes you the odd one out, not him.
>> I have much better experiences in real life. (If you haven't, I'd perhaps suggest that you're doing real-life wrong).
You can have both. You don't have to have either great life experiences or enjoy a drug once in a while. That's a weird attitude. Oh, and if you can naturally do anything that comes close to either MDMA or LSD, I'll eat my hat. And my shoes.
I understand why they enjoy it, I just think the downsides (downregulation) far outweigh the benefits.
>Oh, and if you can naturally do anything that comes close to either MDMA or LSD, I'll eat my hat. And my shoes
Lucid dreaming would be the natural equivalent, and with the benefit of zero health risk (including no downregulation of anything) and control over the experience.
Downregulation is temporary and personally I want to experience everything. My time with likes of LSD is over now, but I'm glad I did it.
Fun and entertainment.
> I'd perhaps suggest that you're doing real-life wrong
Why be so combatitive? Your experiences maybe valid for yourself, but that doesnt make it right for everyone else
Maybe I'm cynical but this feels like a drummed up press release for the woman mentioned in the article's campaign to ban this thing.
It's almost like satire at this point. "Hey, this fake weed that showed up because real weed is illegal is causing all sorts of problems. I bet if we make it illegal, all of these problems will go away. And I'll get re-elected."
That said - within the UK 'RC' scene, synthetic cannibinoids tend to be looked down on or avoided more than other unknown or novel compounds, because they can be unpleasant and (psychologically?) addictive. They also seem to have caused various kidney problems and stuff. The general consensus is that it would be good if weed were legalised so these things just went away.
I say within the RC scene, I mean the online scene. Head shops are doing a roaring trade in the stuff.
It sounds like you have some knowledge and evidence of their safety. Knowledge that neither I nor the rest of the world has. Why don't you share it then?
From what I've read and seen of the medical issues associated with these untested substances the reactions seem entirely appropriate.
Oh and in the UK - mephedrone, which was banned purely because it became popular. Nobody did themselves much harm with it until after prohibition.
That's not true. There have been quite a few fatal mephedrone overdoses in the UK.
As far as I could ever tell there was only one widely reported (before prohibition), and it was misreported by the press. The substance that killed that guy was methadone.
--edit-- I see from a quick scan of wikipedia that there were a very few deaths
The only one definitely cause by mephedrone and pre-ban I can see was "The first death reported to be caused by mephedrone use was that of 46-year-old, John Sterling Smith, who had underlying health problems and repeatedly injected the drug"
It's not exactly a surprise at that point.
I shall tone down my initial statement - mephedrone appears to have been a relatively safe drug, given the huge scale if its use pre-ban and the very small number of deaths.
As they are easily available, they tend to be more popular among the young (in some areas) who perhaps know less people on how to get actual cannabis.
Hey kids, don't smoke this plant, which is actually pretty safe* smoke these unknown, brand new chemicals some dodgy chemist has knocked up to bypass some laws.
It is all but directly comparable to prohibition, don't drink these safe regulated spirits, drink this moonshine made in some guys bathtub where the profit is paramount and safety be damned.
Yet another case of illegality causing more harm, more problems and costing more than legalisation ever would.
*but not 100% safe, does cause issues in some etc etc
"Won't someone think of children and legalise all drugs"
Then some actual sensible progress will be made
Look, it's not good that people are ruining their lives on this stuff but to a certain degree it seems that you might be right:
> “If I weren’t on this I might be angry, I might be hitting her. Who knows what I would be up to,” he said, his words trailing off with each drag of the cigarette. “This stuff makes me calm.”
Out of all the possible evils, super-stoners seems like the least: compare the stoner stereotype to the crackhead stereotype. If you take K2 away, what are these people going to turn to (because they are going to turn to another drug)?