Police and federal agents in New York City raided about 80 locations throughout the city last Wednesday in what could be the biggest synthetic marijuana bust in New York History according to law enforcement officials. The result of this operation has raised their concern over the use of synthetic marijuana especially among teens.
According to a report by NBC New York, a total of 10 people were listed in a federal indictment charged with importing at least 100 kilograms of illegal compounds for making synthetic pot. This is enough to produce 260,000 packets of the synthetic pot amounting to around $30 million dollars. In the last 24 hours, agents seized two warehouses full of synthetic drugs in the Bronx. They were able to arrest 6 among the 10 indicted.
"Over the last several years, our special testing labs have identified over 400 new synthetic drugs," according to Eduardo Chavez of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Known by names like K2 or Spice, these synthetic drugs are designed to mimic marijuana. However it was later found to be more potent than organic marijuana. In New York alone, 2,300 people have ended up in emergency rooms in two months after taking the substance. The synthetic marijuana can lead to severe medical conditions such as seizures, anxiety and cardiac arrest, officials said.
It can also aggravate mental health problems and cause paranoia, delirium and violent behaviour.
"I have had routine heroin users tell me that they have tried Spice one time and hated it and told me they'd never try it again because it was too scary," Chavez added in a report by CBS News.
These compounds allegedly arrived in powdered form from China and shipped via commercial delivery channels to be delivered to the warehouses in the Bronx where they're mixed with chemical solvents and sprayed onto tea leaves. These are then packaged and sold to wholesale distributors with names like AK-47, Blue Caution and Green Giant.
"Despite sometimes being called synthetic marijuana, this stuff is not marijuana. It can cause unpredictably severe and even lethal effects," Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said at a news briefing. "It is not natural and it is not harmless in any sense of the word. In fact, some experts believe that spice can be up to 100 times more potent than pot."
