“Fate weed, killing Our Youth”
Rhonda Jones
SOC305: Crime & Society (BLE1332A)
Instructor: Raymon Keefauver
September 9, 2013
Here in Washington County where we leave our doors unlocked and keys in our car, we are fighting a war to keep our kids safe from Synthetic Weed. We’ve lost one of our own to this drugs. After a night of getting high, he hung himself. The county has also had 2 close calls with juveniles nearly dying from using this drug. In our neighboring county, Clarke County, 6 people have died over the last 3 weeks.
The biggest social problem facing our society at this present time is Synthetic cannabis, better known as Spice, K2, bath salt, and simply synthetic weed. This substitute for marijuana is a psychoactive designer drug derived from natural herbs sprayed with synthetic chemicals that, when consumed, gives the user the effects of cannabis. This substitution for weed has become a large and rich business used to take the place of natural grown weed. However it is not weed.
A Clemson University chemist named John Huffman developed this synthetic cannabis. He was researching cannabinoids for the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The compound he came up with was called JWH-018, because JWH are Huffman's initials and he's clearly an egotistical prick. You know what else he is? He was also called “A buzzkill”.
After his findings he states, "These compounds were not meant for human consumption. Their effects in humans have not been studied and they could very well have toxic effect. They absolutely should not be used as recreational drugs," (Brown, A., December 2011). Little is known about their effects, adverse reactions, long-term damage or the dependence potential. Legal herbal products, claiming to have similar effects to cannabis, have been available in Australia for years, however “the synthetic cannabis products causing recent concern have only been identified in the country since 2011,...