The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Rank & File and substance abuse counselor Patrick Lawton.
Rank & File: There’s been a recent spike in the trend of teenagers and young adults smoking synthetic marijuanas, including the substance known as K2. Are you aware of this at Marshall or around the county?
Patrick Lawton: Yeah, students admit to using it. Generally speaking, they don’t like it as much as marijuana. They prefer the real thing as opposed to synthetic, but they will use it at times. Everyone has varying experiences and the reason is because [with] all this synthetic stuff that kids are smoking, you don’t exactly know what you’re getting.
You don’t know what type of synthetic marijuana you’re getting, how much of it’s on the product or how strong it is, so everybody’s reaction to it is very different.
R&F: According to our research, there are different kinds of K2 and also knock-off brands. Do you know anything about the differences there?
PL: There are over 100 different types of synthetic cannibanoids. JWH-018 was the first that was created. Now that’s been banned by the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] along with four other substances for a year while they work on scheduling the drug to make it illegal.
In that time all the people selling all these synthetics just wholesaled all that product for that day and then they started making new ones with different types of synthetics. That’s how they are keeping it still legal.
R&F: Do kids experience health problems with different synthetics?
PL: Some of these synthetics can be up to 800 times stronger than regular marijuana and the regular THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] in marijuana. A lot of times you see your heart rate going up, you see your blood pressure going up. It’s a toxin; we don’t actually know how long it stays in your body. Some people actually [experience] problems still going on a week later after smoking it once.
[Side effects have included] emergency room visits, people passing out, inducing seizures and convulsions, and different things. In Europe in the 2000s, there were a lot of issues and a lot of hospital visits from it. That’s why it became illegal there, and that’s why people started making it and bringing it over here to sell. There’s been a lot of hospital emergency room visits because of it.
R&F: Earlier you said that there was a ban on JWH-018 but it wasn’t illegal yet. What’s the difference between banned and illegal?
PL: The DEA put a year long ban on JWH-018 which is the original synthetic along with four others that are popular. The difference is they need time to go through all the paperwork and collect evidence to present to Congress or whoever to say “Hey, we want to make this illegal, we want to make it a scheduled drug.”
R&F: Like a narcotic?
PL: Yeah, they want to schedule it but it takes time to do that. Because you know in America people have rights and there needs to be a reason why laws are created, but they passed this emergency ban because they were seeing so many problems and emergency room visits and health hazards and other things like that.
R&F: Where do you see this issue going? Do you see it sort of escalating or leveling out?
PL: You know it’s really going to depend on how the DEA handles it and what they do with scheduling it. If all synthetic cannibanoids become illegal outright, I think we’re going to see it sort of [peter] off [because] the teens that come and talk with me say that they prefer marijuana over synthetics.
There is a trend, in general, of synthetic drugs being created, and that includes synthetic stimulants mimicking cocaine in a sense.
I think there is going to be a trend of people trying to create synthetic alternatives because it takes us a while as a country to say: “Hey, this isn’t safe, look what’s happening, this person died, people are going to the hospital, we need to do something about it,” and then you know it’s a process.