its actually something of a bit of poor research on behalf of the article combined with a slight naming issue, originally "spice" when sold as a commercial product initially contained 2 synthetic cannabinoids JWH-018 and one other which i cant remember off hand.
later on other brands using different mixes came about one of the biggest being called "Black Mamba" this too was generally a mixture of synthetic cannabinoids sprayed onto smokable herbs, but then came the psychoactives bill which banned most of these chemicals meaning that they started to be produced illicitly and also led to the mixture of chemicals used in them being even further twisted.
this brings us to now and while fringe analogs of synthetic cannabinoids are no doubt still being used and by no means are they likely to be good for you the problem chemical is actually more likely to be MDPV or a derivative of it (methylenedioxypyrovalerelone if memory serves correctly) otherwise known as Monkey dust or simply "Dust" it wouldnt surprise me to see some form of dissociative analog in there too, something like 3MeO-PCP
MDPV is not a cannabinoid but more a stimulant of sorts which gives a very short high with very long acting unpleasant side effects. of course its highly unlikely we will ever know exactly what is in that crap but one thing is for sure you have one and only one thing to blame for the problem and that is the prohibition of other substances proven to be less harmful. were we to make a sensible move the likes of the one Portugal has it would likely alleviate the problem greatly, even simply legalizing the sale and recreational use of cannabis would likely greatly reduce the problem (whilst also creating businesses, jobs, tax revenue and tourism to name but a few economic benefits)
how do i know all this stuff? experience i have no shame in admitting i became interested in psychoactive chemicals at one point in my 20s and spent a few years deeply researching and trying a staggering number of chemicals both the classical psychoactives we all know and a large number of "research chemicals" MDPV was in fact one of said chemicals, i only did it once and i did it via insuffluation it gave me a 15min buzz followed by 3 days of no sleep, twitchyness, paranoia and toward the end a similar situation to amphetamine psychosis including hallucinations, from what im told smoking it only serves to intensify all of this. of all the chemicals i tried there were few i could label as fundamentally "bad" but MDPV was definitely one of those few
i fully agree with you that at this stage any comparison to cannabis is pretty idiotic, not only do we not actually know what is in the stuff but even if it were synthetic cannabinoids and nothing else theyre likely now so far removed from the original substance that they have totally different effects just look at what happens when you modify something like amphetamine, both MDMA and Meth are amphetamine analogs but you dont see many people homeless, toothless and brainless due to an MDMA addiction. a quick read of PIHKAL or TIKHAL will show you just how much the effects of a chemical can change with only a tiny modification
its a shame that people arent more biochemically aware or theyd know that articles like this are packed with poor information but sadly thats not the case so we end up with people demonising other substances based on poor information from supposedly trustworthy sources