Synthetic Marijuana Banned in Florida
Published May 10th, 2012
By: Yaremi Farinas
It seems like a game to them.
People make synthetic drugs and the chemical ingredients are banned. So they find new chemicals and then those are banned.
Now Bradford County Sheriff's Office is cracking down on business owners to make sure they are not selling synthetic marijuana.
"He got hooked on it and smoked multiple packs a day of it," said Rusty Greek.
About a year ago Greek's 19-year-old nephew started smoking synthetic marijuana. Greek didn't know his nephew was smoking multiple packs a day and had no idea how dangerous it could be.
"It got to the point that we had to hospitalize him and get him in a clinic," said Greek.
It's usually wrapped in a pack that has some catchy name like Mr.Nice Guy.
All Greek's nephew had to do to get a hold of this, was walk into a convenience store and spend anywhere from $20 to $50 per pack.
"It has no distinctive odor to it when it's burning. Chances are he was smoking it around us like a cigarette, but we didn't know what it was about," said Greek.
He said his nephew thought it was OK to smoke this drug because it was legal.
Every time a chemical was banned, the makers would substitute it with another substance to make it legal again.
"They just change the chemical, to say this is the one I can get by and they put it out on the street, without any testing. They don't care. It's all about the almighty dollar and beating the government," said Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith.
As of March 23,2012, all 142 chemicals that can be used to make synthetic marijuana have been banned in Florida.
Smith said he has parents calling him in the middle of the night saying they don't know what their kids are on.
"What we have are these kids having bad reactions, kids committing suicide, kids who are committing crimes, kids who are getting paranoid and doing things they wouldn't normally do because they don't get the reaction the expect. They are expecting because it's synthetic marijuana, I'll get the same high as marijuana,but they're not," said Smith.
We stopped by some stores to see if they are still selling this.
The owner of a Sunoco in Starke told us he stopped a year ago. Another gas station owner in keystone heights said he pulled it off the shelves three months ago.
"We are sending out letters to our convenience stores. We try to let them know, hey, don't get caught selling this stuff because we are going to seize it," said Smith.
So that people don't have to worry about their relatives smoking synthetic marijuana.
"They were so addicted to it they would give up their family or friends or everything to do it," said Greek.
Greek told us his nephew is permanently schizophrenic because of the drug.
If you are caught smoking or selling synthetic marijuana in florida you will be charged with a third degree felony.
