Legal Fake Pot Scarier Than Illegal Drugs

For those who think marijuana and prescription pills are a parent’s biggest worry, Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King says there’s a new legal drug of choice. Called K2 or “Kush,” the drug has a risk of “anxiety attacks, convulsions, fast heart rates and raised blood pressure” and can be purchased at your local gas station.

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K2, Kush, Fake Weed, Spice, Blaze and Red X Dawn are only some of the brand names of “fake pot” sold at retail outlets in the United States and online, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Washington bureau spokesman, Jeffrey Scott. A Feb. 29 DEA news release explained the common denominator: These are smokeable herbal products consisting of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that claim to mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

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The DEA cites emergency-room physicians’ reports of individuals who have ingested K2 and other fake-pot drugs experiencing convulsions, vomiting, disorientation and anxiety attacks. Federal investigators are seeking manufacturers and suppliers of these drugs; their focus is not on retail outlets like those I visited.