"Spice" not as safe as assumed

Yup, it's all about the money Vicki... Even moreso, many politicians invest in these companies while lobbying for them on the hill. I wonder how they aren't arrested for this type of behavior. You would think we would try to invest efforts in natural herbal relief like they do in the middle east and in Asia. Instead, we get synthetic medication causing addiction problems and deaths due to abuse.

We're so ass backwards in this country, it's not even funny.

I am a nurse. I am looking for a job in a hospital and have been for some time. I have many contacts and resumes out there so potentially, I may have an opportunity for a new job at any time. So at no time am I willing to risk tainting my currently clean urine. I just passed a test for one job, but I am still looking for something else.

So thats how I got into synthetics. I eventually became intrigued in using the raw cannabanoids in e cig preparations. I have been making and selling the juice online, so I can say I have a good grasp on their effects.

In my opinion, I think the problem is availablility. Face it, not everyone should smoke herb. Not everyone has the head for it. Plenty of people have had paranoid reactions to weed. I have had my share. Then I got a stronger head about my smoking and I eventually was able to keep it together when high. Synthetics are powerful. It is very easy to get to "the fear" which is a very panicky paranoid state. These chemicals have an affinity for cannabanoid binding sites in our brains that is hundreds of times stronger than THC's. This is the cruelty of synthetics....over time YOU CAN NO LONGER GET HIGH ON WEED!!!! Of course a tolerance break helps.Take a person prone to herb freak-outs and give them something like Spice...after one hit too many (which is easy your first few times) you will have problems. Not problems that can kill you first hand, but problems that can drive you to hurting yourself and others in a panicked state.

Anyhow, you have a drug that is stronger than weed in its purest form, and is easy to overdo. People who get past panicking find the synthetics to lose their strength over time. The binding ability does that, you really develop a tolerance. You still get a buzz, but you will rarely get to the fearful place unless you really overdose by orally ingesting your cannabanoid. It is a shame that responsible users of these synthetics will end up having to risk our jobs if we want to catch a buzz at the end of the day. These arent the bath salts that we hear about. Those are very dangerous and scary. THese can also be dangerous and must be respected.

As a vendor, I do not want to see this stuff illegal. As a user, I REALLY want it to stay legal. As a parent, well I trust my kids to make the right decision. Hopefully they won't have to make any choices between synthetics and natural. Given the choice, I would chose natural too. Right now, at least I get to be buzzed discreetly.

It is nearing time for me to consider synthetic meds.
its a little toxic maybe but the decision is based on, I could lose everything soon.The roadside tests here are popping up here pretty regular now.

It is a sad day i know.these synthetics pass tests and hopefully will allow me to relax and do my Job after I ved chilled the evening before like i do now.Is that so bad?

it troubles me that people like ourselves use tiny amounts only in the evening and weekend and yet could lose licence,then my job 7 days after i last consumed.Its all very strange.yet you can drink beer till 3 am and go to work at 8am.
Its just stupid to keep doing it and risk losing all.my first port of call is conducting my own tests at home to see if I go over.wish me luck.yes this is me being upset.sorry if i ve said it in the wrong place

what happened to Natural Selection

It is being replaced by government control. Enjoy the soft tyranny.

I tried spice once, we probably smoked I dunno a 2 grams between us, as I went and looked in the mirror I knoticed that my ears had turned a horrifying blood red, I mean red as the devils dick. Seeing this threw me straight into a panic, the shit is wicked. I've been with friends an ill offer organic meds an they'll turn it down for the shit, just because they have "clean" urine smoking that. I've also witnessed a guy puke a pure black substance continually for nearly 3 minutes it was like the scene from the exorcist but it was in no means a laughing matter. I've had friends want to borrow vapes to trying and vaporizer whatever mystery chemical is in their particular packet. A widely popular business magazine picked up and covered the whole "spice" scene due to the fact that many have become millionaires by buying pounds of damania and adding their own little twist. The manufacturer featured in the article owned an autobody shop and half of it was set up to make spice. I personally do classic restorations and that little tidbit right there scares the shit out of me. I won't leave a bag of open chips in the shop because of all the volatile substances in the air. Anyway, decent study's have compared it to the "crack" era of the 80's because of how addictive it is and the power it holds on the users.

Forgive them father for they know not what they do

was told once that it puts holes in your brain. kinda believe the person who told me this.

This is difficult to put down into words. If any of you are willing to take the time to read, please do. This is my experience with the world of synthetic marijuana or spice.

A little background. I started smoking cannabis at 18. It was purely for the enjoyment of the herb. I loved the feeling of communal peace I felt it imparted, the joy of laughter and the taste of food, oh, how bloody glorious! I met my fiance a few years later and she too enjoyed indulging the sweet leaf.

At 21 I started losing weight rapidly. I'm a big man, and lost nearly 150 pounds (down to 140 pounds, on my 6 foot frame was skeletal) in five months. I found out after a good deal of testing and nearly going into cardiac arrest that I had something called Graves Disease. It's a thyroid disorder that effects the endocrine system and destroys the immune system. I turned to cannabis now not just as a high but as an alternative medication to deal with the nausea, the loss of appetite, the terrible new insomnia and the added anxiety and depression (I've also got a touch of OCD).

For nine years I treated my conditions with cannabis, every day. After a break-up with my fiance, I was left without a steady supplier and lived in a state that did not allow medical consumption of any kind. I was desperate. I lived a few years on the government/pharmaco teat on roughly 10 different anti depressants (not all at once) with horrible side effects, addictive benzodiazepenes that I struggle to wean off to this day. I craved the smoke. Nothing worked.

I read a story on msn one morning about a 'dangerous new drug' called K2 that supposedly mimiced the sensation of being high on cannabis. I thought, "What the hell, I'll give it a shot! It's legal!" thinking the horror stories were no different than the ridiculous crap I'd read about cannabis over the years "Reefer Madness" style. I put my fears in the back of my mind, and ordered a three gram packet. Amazing! It didn't taste like weed, but oh it gave me that pleasant heady sensation and the heaviness behind my eyes! I got those familiar munchies, and much of my anxiety and depression slipped away. I was back!

So, I decided to do the natural, logical thing. I ordered more of this chemically treated mystery herbal concoction from a string of shady websites. I fell into a comfortable routine. Months passed. I withdrew more but chalked it up to simply being content and not wanting to reach out. I tried different blends like one would strains, K2 and all the permutations and knock-offs, name-brand and home-blend. You see, the high from Spice is powerful indeed, but very short lived. After 20 minutes you'll find you want to puff again. The come-down is harder than any Indica you've ever puffed. You feel the need to keep that going, though, to keep that pleasant weed-like high. At my peak use I was smoking roughly 18-20 grams of the stuff a week.

After roughly six months of daily self medicating, I started to notice things. I was rocking back and forth uncontrollably. My roommate pointed this out to me delicately by saying, "Dude you're doing the crack-rock, what the hell?" as my body shimmed back and forth. I moved almost exclusively into my bedroom because bright lights were starting to bother me. My ego and identity were being chipped away piece by piece. I started to fear the things I loved, television shows I enjoyed, movies I watched. I was in a constant cycle of medicating and crashing hard. Eventually, I stopped getting high and instead would start to sweat uncontrollably and feel the 'fear' unless I was hitting the pipe every 15 minutes. I stopped feeling any hunger and lost around 80 pounds as that combined with my graves disease spiking out of remission. It was a miserable existance and I was crashing hard.

Christmas of that year. Nine months of daily use of spice, 3 gram consumption daily. Two days before the Holiday, I hit a hot-spot. If you're unfamiliar with the term, this is a spot where a mass of the chemicals (the active ingrediant in the spice) clumped to the herb during the evaporating of the solvent used to bond the cannabinoid to the inert plant. At the risk of sounding overdramatic, I dosed myself.

I was certain I was going to die. I went into a chain of panic attacks and eventually had to be taken to the hospital. Keep in mind, I was a daily smoker of cannabis for ten years before this. I never once had a similar experience, no matter how much I puffed. My tolerance grows to ridiculous levels. I had to check myself in to the psychatric ward of the hospital because I was certain I was going to commit suicide. After a two day vacation as Boy, Interrupted, I knew I had to stop.

I weaned myself off over a period of two weeks. I laid in bed and made peace with the gods. I asked all those people I had wronged for forgiveness, because I was certain I was not going to live. I craved it, hated it, wanted it, knew I had to get away from it. I lost a dear friend who moved out of my home because of my problems with this insidious (group of) drugs known as JWH-XXX and the related analogues. I gnawed down 90 percent cocoa dark chocolate in hopes of hitting the right receptors. I meditated. I white-knuckled it. I sobbed like a child for hours, daily. I managed to beat it though.

Game over, right? Not so much. The shaking, the visual sensitivity, the shivering, sweating and terrible gaps in memory persisted. For the following six months I went through my own personal hell as I wondered if I would ever feel 'normal' (or as close as I can possibly get) again. I don't know exactly when it faded. It was a gradual process of regaining my full cognizance, and I still suffer from the memory gaps to this day.

If you're thinking about substituting spice for Marijuana. Don't. Please. No matter how badly you want to. You may think I'm an extreme case. I certainly would agree. After this chain of unfortunate events I decided I was going to move to a state that offered a medical alternative. I moved from the midwest back to my home state of California and haven't looked back.

I would say that I am comfortable with consuming an oz of top shelf medical cannabis within a two week period without feeling ill effects. The natural, loving plant has helped restore me to a sense of well being and slowed the terrible racing thoughts somewhat. Cannabis and Spice are not the same substances, and you can't treat them that way. I made this mistake.

Please forgive the length of this post. I may have been too personal and shared too much. I feel very strongly about this and if someone here can benefit from my mistakes, I would feel it worth it. Thank you if you've read this.

Stay vaped (natural alternatives only!)

WTF, that sounds like some kind of meth-withdrawal horror story. This spice shit really needs to be illegalized. Hopefully someone takes the initiative and starts an organized national campaign against it. At the very least, there should be an "anti-spice" website, where users can post negative reactions.

Wasn't it prohibition that started all this in the first place? Maybe we should think about legalizing the plant instead.

Keep smiling and spread the word and spread the love.The world will follow.Thank you Raoul so much

haha yes...

hey weed demon

I had been contemplating using spice.It's good to hear Raouls experience with it and also to see he's moved on, I guess it helped open a possibility for me too, reading that.that and the decision not to touch spice whatever the consequence.
Its been a long 3 weeks for me but those 'pardon me' not so nice demons are laid to rest now Had my own olympics going on about my future those bumps we sometimes hit .Battled and finally won in the hurdles .Needed to sit in the space.Back on Track now One love to this community

Damn RaoulDuke007, that's one hell of a story. Thanks for sharing your experience.

I've had thoughts of medicating with Spice/K2 in the past when my supply has run dry. I always balk at the price though. A Q would almost cost the same as a packet of synthetic here.

I'm tempted to buy a pack today and just try it once. I've got a hardy oz of Kush here, so I don't need to worry about becoming addicted to Spice/K2.

I've never thought twice about using any of this fake crap. I've heard nothing but bad things. Just read this whole thread and watched the VAADA conference chad posted. I don't feel like even supporting my LHS anymore. I remember asking them about it just for info because ive heard of old friends using it, and they said that type of stuff was their biggest seller...then went into sales mode with me.

Raoul: thanks for sharing! Take care.

Can't say I ever assumed it was 'safe'! Although I have smoked it a few times when I was completely dry. Also tried eating it once which was probably an even worse idea than smoking it.

I put a thread up about K2 making someone go crazy a few days ago, if I had seen this thread I woulda just put it in here...

Is the stuff they call black mamba the same as spice, K2 or is that just untreated damiana and other plants?

Black Mamba was/is one of the brand names of Spice that was really popular in the head/tobacco shops. K2 itself is not exactly a separate product, it was just the biggest selling/most bootlegged name in the Spice world. Spice is the blanket term for any of the mystery herbs (damiana, marshmallow leaf, canavallalaeoeleolo, etc) that have been chemically bonded with a solvent (most often acetone) and one of the cannabinoid analogues such as JWH-018. So, cliff notes-

Spice = Any blend of herbs sprayed or evapped in an acetone bath with cannabis analogue chemicals.
K2 = The most popular 'brand' of Spice, their product labelled "Summit" was the initial target of the news stories and lead to it being the most bootlegged of the bunch. Similar to how Q-tip and Ipod became synonyms for Cotton Swabs and MP3 players. Many online retailers simply put their own batch of herbs and chemicals into plastic bags labelled with phony K2 stickers. Other popular online brands of spice were Serenity Now and Mr. Nice Guy.
Black Mamba = Popular head shop brand of spice.

All of it is nasty shite. Even the creator of the JWH analogue said he only created to see if it could be done, and that actually consuming it was a bad idea. Straight poison, honestly.

Good to know, thank you. What is a good place then to get clean damiana, dagga, mullien, or lotus? I seen them on Amazon in uncut leaf form, but not sure if they are any good.

Actually water in nature is much more than just H2O...there's hundreds of minerals and electrolytes that are not found in just H2O.

The same holds true for Cannabis. The hundreds of compounds present in it modulate the effects it gives. That is why there is such a wide range of effects from the thousands of strains now available.

And JWHs are Synthetic Cannabinoids...they affect CB1 receptors or CB2 receptors or both, so therefore they are Cannabinoids. They are also man made and non-organic so they are synthetic.