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Comment by graphe | Hacker News Reader

> This is partly due to the spread of cheap and extremely potent synthetic cannabinoids that can cause serious neurological and cardiovascular complications—and deaths—every year.

Source on this claim? What are the current synthetics? 'Nobody' smokes synthetics and people don't even want to smoke semi synthetic hemp (like delta 8), jwh018 hasn't been a problem for nearly a decade. And deaths based on it? Haven't heard of it and the news would have loved that. I haven't heard of a single one, bath salts or mdpv was a small blip of a problem around that era too.

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JWH-018 was a very popular synthetic but of course it got banned so the supply dried up. It's more of a problem in younger lower class urban areas where the newly created not-yet-banned synthetics are sold as research chemicals or legal highs in head shops and gas stations. It's quite widespread, just not talked about often, because when media runs stories, things get banned.

Here's a video from one research chemist (Dr Zee) talking about his work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0NRsaPmVX8

While a very small list compared to the number of available chemicals, there are commercially available EMIT kits for the screening of the synthetic cannabinoids JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-398, JWH-200, JWH-019, JWH-122, JWH-081, JWH-250, JWH-203, CP-47,497, CP-47,497-C8, HU-210, HU-211, AM-2201, AM-694, RCS-4, and RCS-8 through companies like NMS Labs, Cayman Chemical, and Immunoanalysis Corporation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00032...

Just one source. Yes smoking snobs will not use synthetic (but may get exposed still more than they would think). But there are a lot of other types of consumers. Indeed there are a lot of other synthetic cannabinoids now, JWH018 is rare now.

https://www.cfsre.org/nps-discovery/trend-reports/synthetic-...

https://emergency.cdc.gov/newsletters/coca/042318.html - remember that one?

https://www.aegislabs.com/clinical-update/july22a/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMB-4en-PINACA the most common one apparently has been implicated in deaths but there is not any evidence it causes these problems. Deaths were implicated but it doesn't prove it causes it. Since it's on the DEA watchlist I doubt there are enough MDMB-4en-PINACA addicts to seek it out. It's a crappy alternative to the real drug. It's also such a small amount of people.

Snobs don't smoke "bad weed" but if the supply is gone it will be gone. Banning synthetics will easily kill this market, it is a 3rd rate experience that won't be seeked.

They've already tried banning synthetics. I remember 14 years ago when buying JWH-018 it was sold as "bonsai fertilizer" and then my state banned it by name along with "all other analogues" though I don't know how effective that particular ban was as the people importing/making spice just used different chemicals that weren't explicitly named.

The main draw to this isn't that it's a 3rd rate experience, it's a high that won't show up on drug screens so it was very popular among people on probation back then. Delta 8 still shows up on drug screens but many of the synthetics don't, so if you "can't get caught" but still want to get high people are more likely to reach for research chemicals for the same reason people do krokodil even knowing they will likely have side effects.

I think they're still popular in states that haven't legalized.

Which one and where? Delta 8 is more accessible and available in illegal states and the semi-synthetic hemp derivatives aren't full cannabinoid receptors. The article feels a lot like reading about the internet is insecure, and how it's partly due to iOS 6, and how to fix your phone 3GS's icloud security by installing a program they made.

Here in the UK we call them as "Spice", vastly legal.

https://theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/31/urgent-action-ne...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9418359/

This article is about synthetic cannabinoids, not phytocannabinoids or other naturally-occuring noids (Delta8/9/10, THCA, THCV, COOH, THC-O, HHC, THC-P, etc).

They are similar in that there's a race to find and synthesize them and get them to market, but synthetics do not occur in nature.

That's my point. Nobody smokes synthetics. Semi-synths are not synths.

d8 is super popular in ohio. I see it everwhere.

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