Another reason for their continued use is that standard drug tests cannot easily detect many of the chemicals used in these products. The most common way to use synthetic cannabinoids is to smoke the dried plant material. Users also mix the sprayed plant material with marijuana or brew it as tea.
Other users buy synthetic cannabinoid products as liquids to vaporize in e-cigarettes. Synthetic cannabinoids act on the same brain cell receptors as THC deltatetrahydrocannabinol , the mind-altering ingredient in marijuana. So far, there have been few scientific studies of the effects of synthetic cannabinoids on the human brain, but researchers do know that some of them bind more strongly than marijuana to the cell receptors affected by THC and can produce much stronger effects. The resulting health effects can be unpredictable and dangerous.
Because the chemical composition of many synthetic cannabinoid products is unknown and may change from batch to batch, these products are likely to contain substances that cause dramatically different effects than the user might expect.
People who have used synthetic cannabinoids and have been taken to emergency rooms have shown severe effects including:. Yes, synthetic cannabinoids can be addictive. Regular users trying to quit may have the following withdrawal symptoms:. Behavioral therapies and medications have not specifically been tested for treatment of addiction to these products. Health care providers should screen patients for possible co-occurring mental health conditions.
An overdose occurs when a person uses too much of a drug and has a dangerous reaction that results in serious, harmful symptoms or death. Use of synthetic cannabinoids can cause:. Deaths can also occur when dangerous synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, are added to the packaged mixture without the user knowing it.
And their effects are so wide-ranging and potentially damaging because the CB1 receptors that these synthetic drugs have been designed to target are common in many different regions across the brain. The memory effects are likely to come from the density of CB1 receptors in the hippocampus — the temporal lobe may be why these drugs can cause seizures, and their dangerous cardiac, respiratory and gastrointensinal effects are likely to be due to the number of CB1 receptors in the brain stem.
Measham knows drug workers who believe that spice is worse than heroin in terms of physical addiction.
They thought it was a synthetic cannabinoid, which makes it sound benign. All sorts of people were trying it, putting the same amount in a spliff as they would if it was cannabis, but it could be times more potent. Bradley has no doubts that spice is addictive.
So how is the problem of spice tackled in other countries? Do bans work? Prior to the UK ban, the only two countries in the world to have passed similar legislation were Ireland and Poland, which both subsequently saw increases in the use of new psychoactive drugs.
Nutt said that the history of drug control over the last century proves that prohibition does not work. Martin Powell, campaigns manager at Transform, a thinktank that pushes for drugs liberalisation, suggested that what was happening in Wrexham would, in time, spread to other regions. Arfon Jones, the North Wales police and crime commissioner, whose patch includes Wrexham, believes the spice problem has been exacerbated by the ban.
The positive sentiment on social media is also very high. I think the Home Office are behind the times in understanding this change in attitude.
Powell draws comparisons with other countries. People just stuck with using cannabis. Nutt agrees. Personally, I think prisoners should be allowed to smoke cannabis. None of them would use spice then, almost certainly.
Instead people would have access to low-strength traditional cannabis with a nice THC ratio. It would dramatically reduce the use of more harmful cannabinoids. But spice users like those living in the makeshift camp in Wrexham are unlikely to be able to afford cannabis. Under the proposals, manufacturers assessed as producing low-harm psychoactive substances would be allowed to sell the drugs under licence.
So they got out. But despite the chaos that spice has brought to the prison, police, health and emergency services, it still remains largely a criminal justice issue, rather than a medical emergency. It should commission someone to get an antidote back into the medical arena. Since the ban, Wedinos has detected fewer variants of spice on the market. And she has noticed another trend, too. A zombie drug has created a zombie army, shunting those on the margins so far to the edge of society that they are seen more as ghouls than people.
And that just makes them want to use more. This article is more than 4 years old. Spice was banned a year ago. Now campaigners say forcing the problem underground is making a dangerous situation worse. This is because, while the THC in natural cannabis only partially reacts with the body, synthetic cannabis reacts far more fully. Although the consequences of long-term regular use are not well defined, experts believe that synthetic cannabis has the potential to develop, or cause a relapse of mental illness, especially if there is a family history of mental disorders.
In , the first synthetic cannabinoid — which reacts with the body in the same way as cannabis — was identified on the recreational drug market. Aminoalkylindoles — the most common sub-family of synthetic cannabinoids —- are produced, in kilogram quantities, through quick and simple chemical reactions using legal substances.
These substances are produced on a large-scale by chemical companies based in China and then shipped, as bulk powders, to Europe by air or sea.
Once in Europe, the synthetic cannabinoids are mixed with or sprayed onto plant material using solvents such as acetone or methanol to dissolve the powders. The combination is then dried, packaged and sold as either incense or smoking mixtures.
JWH is now a controlled substance in many countries under narcotics legislation. But the prevalence of next-generation synthetic cannabinoids — now known colloquially as Spice or Mamba — continue to be the largest group of new psychoactive substances NPS in common usage.
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