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Tag: K2

  • Aaron Hernandez Allegedly Smoked K2 For Days Before Death

    Aaron Hernandez Allegedly Smoked K2 For Days Before Death

    One inmate says the New England Patriot spent his last days smoking K2 and “wasn’t in his right mind.”

    Radar Online has reported that former New England Patriots tight-end, Aaron Hernandez, spent the last two days of his life using synthetic marijuana, and died by suicide while in a chemically disoriented state.

    Documents viewed by Radar also suggested that a state investigation into Hernandez’s suicide on April 19, 2017 at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts withheld information about the 27-year-old’s drug use for fear of compromising a separate investigation into drug use at the facility.

    Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in the shooting death of semi-pro player Odin Lloyd in 2013.

    Radar cited a redacted section of the 132-page public report that included quotes from an interview with an unnamed inmate on the day Hernandez died.

    According to Radar, the prisoner is reported to have said, “Well, he’s spent the last two days smoking K2 in his cell, and he wasn’t in his right mind.”

    Two other inmates corroborated that story, while all three alleged that Hernandez appeared to be in a positive or even celebratory mood in the days prior to his death, possibly due to his acquittal on murder charges stemming from a separate double homicide in 2012.

    Reports about Hernandez’s alleged use of K2—a form of synthetic marijuana with a propensity for causing a host of symptoms from hallucinations to unconsciousness and in some cases, severe bleeding—surfaced almost immediately after his death.

    But a 2017 toxicology report from the Massachusetts State Police found that Hernandez had no evidence of drugs in his system at the time of his death.

    But as toxicologist Marilyn Huestis told the Boston Globe, K2 can be easy to miss in test screenings. “These [synthetic marijuana strains] can be so potent, the doses so low, that when a person takes it, you can only measure it in their blood for a short period of time,” she noted. “So labs will frequently miss it in the blood.”

    Those findings were rebuked by Hernandez’s lawyer, Jose Baez, who in a statement to People, said, “The lack of professionalism exhibited by government officials and their employees during this entire process is unprecedented.”

    Another of Hernandez’s lawyers, George Leontire, also condemned the state’s handling of the investigation. “Any disturbing commentary about the state’s investigation was clearly hidden from the public, Aaron’s lawyers, and his family,” he said to the Globe.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Surge In K2 Overdoses Worries Brooklyn's Community Leaders

    Surge In K2 Overdoses Worries Brooklyn's Community Leaders

    “We’ve seen this area be an epicenter for K2. Whether it’s a bodega or whether it’s a crime syndicate. It will not be allowed in this community.”

    After five individuals were hospitalized in the same evening for allegedly overdosing on synthetic marijuana community leaders and law enforcement in Brooklyn, New York announced a call for action to rein in the borough’s ongoing problems with use of the drug.

    Representatives from the City Council praised efforts by the New York Police Department (NYPD) for focusing their efforts on distribution rather than users, which has resulted in the closure of several bodegas that sell the drug – also known as spice or K2 – but noted that greater efforts to provide education, fair housing and treatment could make more lasting changes.

    The overdoses that prompted the community response all took place in the morning of September 8, 2018, when five men overdosed on the same corner in the Bushwick neighborhood – an area dubbed “Zombieland” by residents because of the high incidence of K2 use there.

    All five individuals, whom neighbors said had used synthetic marijuana, were listed in stable condition after being hospitalized; more than 100 people overdosed in a single weekend at that corner in May of 2018.

    Speaking on September 10, 2018 in front of a bodega that had been closed by NYPD for selling synthetic marijuana, City Council member Robert Cornegy told the assembled crowd that while police efforts have curbed the availability of the drug and reduced the sheer number of overdoses, five was still a “horrible number,” as High Times noted, and that more work was necessary to combat the K2 problem.

    “We’ve seen this area be an epicenter for K2,” he said. “Whether it’s a bodega, whether it’s an individual or whether it’s a crime syndicate. It will not be allowed in this community.”

    Cornegy voiced appreciation for the collaborative efforts between community leaders, local officials and the police, which he said was the “first time” all three groups had worked together on such a borough-wide issue. He also expressed gratitude for police efforts to halt the spread of K2 by targeting bodegas that sold the drug, and for focusing their efforts on distributors instead of those who use it.

    Information and increased resources were cited as a possible means of breaking the cycle of K2 abuse in Brooklyn. “Until we have an education system that allows people to achieve the highest in education, and where they can feel comfortable in affordable housing, you are going to have this kind of behavior,” Cornegy told the crowd.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • More Than 70 People Overdose In Connecticut Park Over 24-Hour Period

    More Than 70 People Overdose In Connecticut Park Over 24-Hour Period

    K2 is to blame for the mass overdose in New Haven.

    Starting on Tuesday night, more than 70 people suffered a drug overdose in a 24-hour period in New Haven, Connecticut—most of them a stone’s throw from Yale University.

    According to CBS News, the Drug Enforcement Administration has confirmed that the cause of the mass overdose was, indeed, K2—the synthetic drug that’s been the suspect behind similar mass drug poisonings from Washington, D.C. to Skid Row.

    Initially, officials speculated that the mystery substance was “possibly laced with an opioid” such as fentanyl, the New York Times reported. But the DEA confirmed that no additives were detected.

    Most of the poisonings happened on New Haven Green, a park not far from Yale University. At least two people experienced “life-threatening symptoms,” but no deaths were reported. Three people were arrested in relation to the mass overdose.

    At the scene, the victims suffered “a multitude of signs and symptoms ranging from vomiting, hallucinating, high blood pressure, shallow breathing, [and] semi-conscious and unconscious states,” said Rick Fontana, New Haven’s director of emergency operations.

    Emergency personnel scrambled to reach all of the victims. They were “sprinting from patient to patient in the park,” with crews transporting people quickly “just to turn the cars around and get them back out,” according to Dr. Sandy Bogucki, the city’s director of emergency medical services.

    On July 4, there were 14 drug overdoses in the same area of New Haven, with K2 as the reported cause.

    Also in July, NBC News reported that more than 260 people were sickened by “synthetic drugs” in Washington, D.C. in a span of 10 days. Once again, K2 was the suspected cause.

    This marked a significant increase from the previous July, when just 107 were hospitalized for drug poisonings in Washington, D.C.

    K2 is also known as Spice and “synthetic marijuana.” However, as High Times notes, comparing the drug to cannabis is “being generous.”

    The only similarity that K2 may have to cannabis, however faint, is its physical appearance. But the effects couldn’t be more different.

    “In reality, the drug is a manmade chemical cocktail of various psychoactive substances,” High Times explains. “The chemical mixture is then sprayed onto dried herbs or plant material, giving the drug an appearance similar to botanical cannabis.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA Warns Of Synthetic Marijuana Laced With Rat Poison

    FDA Warns Of Synthetic Marijuana Laced With Rat Poison

    The warning comes amid a wave of synthetic marijuana overdoses. 

    The FDA warned this week about the ongoing danger of synthetic cannabis laced with rat poison, floating concerns that the tainted drug could pose a threat to the nation’s blood supply. 

    Poisoned supplies of the drug have already accounted for several deaths and sent hundreds of users to the hospital this year with severe bleeding or seizures, officials said. 

    Concern about contaminated drug stashes comes amid an ongoing effort to stamp out the use of the cannabis copycat often sold illegally in convenient stores and corner markets. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised a red flag about the risks of rat poison-laced supplies earlier this year. 

    “Despite our efforts, certain entities continue to bypass state and federal drug laws by making and distributing these products – often marked or labeled as ‘not for human consumption’ – and changing the structure of the synthetic chemicals to try to skirt legal requirements,” the FDA wrote in its release. 

    But the real danger in recent months, the agency said, is that K2 makers have begun adding in brodifacoum – an anticoagulant used in rat poison – in an effort to prolong the high. 

    Adding that chemical can pose other health risks, including severe bleeding. Hundreds of users across 10 Midwestern states have been hospitalized in recent months as a result of complications stemming from the presence of brodifacoum, the agency said. 

    “Today, we’re joining together to send a strong warning to anyone who may use synthetic marijuana products that these products can be especially dangerous as a result of the seemingly deliberate use of brodifacoum in these illegal products,” the agency wrote in a release Thursday. 

    Aside from the risk to users, the agency also highlighted the threat to the blood supply. 

    “The FDA has received several reports of donors who used synthetic cannabinoids contaminated with brodifacoum. Because of its long half-life, the bleeding risk from brodifacoum, which prevents vitamin K from being reused within the body, can persist for weeks,” the agency wrote.

    “Given the known and unknown risks associated with these synthetic cannabinoid products, the FDA urges individuals to avoid using them, especially since there’s no way of telling which synthetic marijuana products have been contaminated with the powerful anticoagulant brodifacoum.” 

    The agency vowed to continue monitoring the situation, along with the CDC and DEA.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Bad Batch" Of K2 Suspected In DC Mass Overdose

    "Bad Batch" Of K2 Suspected In DC Mass Overdose

    Since last week, 140 people were sickened and four have died in the suspected overdose wave.

    A “bad batch” of K2, a nickname for “synthetic marijuana,” is the prime suspect behind a recent rash of apparent overdoses in Washington, D.C.

    Fox 5 reported on Wednesday that 140 people were sickened and four have died since Saturday. “Since July 14th we’ve had over 100 people that we’ve transported,” said D.C. Fire & EMS Chief Gregory Dean.

    While the suspected overdoses occurred in “pockets throughout the District,” emergency officials observed that many of them occurred near one homeless shelter not far from D.C. police headquarters.

    “You will see people that are unconscious, people that are vomiting, people that are collapsing or maybe being overly aggressive—those are signs that they may be impacted or under the influence,” said Dean.

    According to NBC News, the number of emergency calls for suspected overdoses has fluctuated in recent years. In July of 2016, the D.C. fire department responded to 597 overdose patients to the hospital, while in July of 2017, that number decreased to 105.

    Authorities handed out “Emergency Alert” flyers in hard-hit areas containing information about K2, how to stay safe, and resources for substance use disorder treatment and behavioral health services.

    While authorities have tried keeping up with the use of K2, reports of mass overdoses haven’t gone away.

    Last month, the Daily Beast reported a “remarkable increase in the use of synthetic cannabinoids among IV drug users.” There are now at least 700 possible variations of synthetic cannabinoids, according to the report.

    “We are now in our eighth generation of synthetic cannabinoids and they just keep getting more powerful and unpredictable,” said forensic narcotics expert David Leff. “Users you have no idea what you’re actually consuming. These are substances that have never been tested on humans.”

    Also, over the last year, we’ve come across reports of K2 laced with bug spray, and K2 that cause more disturbing side effects like severe bleeding.

    In April 2018, 56 such cases were reported in the Chicago-central Illinois area.

    “All cases have required hospitalizations for symptoms such as coughing up blood, blood in the urine, severe bloody nose, and/or bleeding gums,” reported the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) at the time.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Synthetic Marijuana Makes Comeback With More Disturbing Side Effect

    Synthetic Marijuana Makes Comeback With More Disturbing Side Effect

    “We are now in our eighth generation of synthetic cannabinoids and they just keep getting more powerful and unpredictable.”

    Despite a brief decline in poison center calls regarding synthetic marijuana, also known as K2 or Spice, use of the drug is back on the rise, according to the Daily Beast.

    This spring, a new, more disturbing, side effect surfaced—severe bleeding.

    About 56 such cases were reported in the Chicago-central Illinois area. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reported: “All cases have required hospitalization for symptoms such as coughing up blood, blood in the urine, severe bloody nose, and/or bleeding gums.”

    In Philadelphia, there has been a “remarkable increase in the use of synthetic cannabinoids among IV drug users” in recent months, according to the Daily Beast.

    Some are “add[ing] hits of K2 to their daily cocktail of heroin and cocaine”; one user said “it mixes well with dope.” Another user said, “I swear some people are actually smoking [K2] instead of doing dope.”

    While the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office recorded no deaths attributed solely to synthetic cannabinoids, the city’s Episcopal Hospital reports seeing more people coming in showing signs of K2 intoxication—two to three people on average, daily.

    “We see a lot of K2 overdoses. This is really fucking nasty stuff. I mean when we come upon an overdose we just don’t know what’s in it. Sometimes they’re extremely agitated. And there’s no antidote,” said Joann Conti, a paramedic with the Philadelphia Fire Department. “So all we can do is restrain them and take them to the emergency room. I’ve intubated people after smoking this stuff who never get extubated. They live on a ventilator.”

    Treating K2 intoxication is a challenge. According to the Daily Beast, there are now at least 700 possible varieties of synthetic cannabinoids, with dozens more popping up each year.

    “We are now in our eighth generation of synthetic cannabinoids and they just keep getting more powerful and unpredictable,” said forensic narcotics expert David Leff. “You have no idea what you’re actually consuming. These are substances that have never been tested on humans.”

    Given the huge variety, there is no standard for treating K2 intoxication.

    “All we can really do is treat their symptoms and release them. Very little is known about these substances, so we have no idea what they ingested or what the long-term consequences could be,” said Dr. Edward Fishkin, chief medical officer of Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center in Brooklyn, New York, where more than a dozen people were hospitalized in one night in May, K2 being the chief suspect.

    View the original article at thefix.com