Teenagers Smoke K2 Incense To Get High
It’s called K2 or Spice, and it’s the latest drug craze hitting young adults across South Florida. K2 is sold as incense, but you will be hard pressed to find users not smoking it. It certainly is the most expensive incense in town.
“Look at the prices of this stuff, 30 grams $289″ said Ana Moreno, a therapist at South Miami Hospital’s Addiction Treatment Center.
Moreno says K2 use has been on the rise in the last two months. CBS4 News asked her how confident she is that this stuff is being used here.
“One hundred percent, and what scares me the most is that it’s here right now,” said Moreno.
The incense is really a synthetic version of marijuana, except stronger and it doesn’t show up on drug tests.
We caught up with Alfie Hernandez at a Coconut Grove park. She told us she’s never tried K2, but herd plenty about it. “A lot of kids are thinking it’s legal. It must be safer. It must be safer than regular marijuana, but it seems to be the opposite.”
Moreno listed off the symptoms: “Accelerated heart rate, accelerated blood pressure, seizures, comas” in addition to getting high.
K2 is sold in head shops all over town. It is on display inside Yuckies in Coconut Grove, but we were not allowed videotape it.
Rosario Hildago, a mother of three had never heard of K2. She pointed out the days of telling our kids to avoid the drug dealer is no longer enough.
“You need to talk to them about everything. What’s happening. You don’t hide them. You have to tell them this is the world. It’s not a beautiful as you think.” said Hildago.
K2 has already been banned in Kansas, Kentucky and Georgia. Missouri and Tennessee are considering bans now. Moreno would like to see Florida join in on the effort, but until then she is telling parents to “Be aware. Be aware of what this is. It looks like marijuana. Has the same kind of texture as marijuana and yes your kids might say it’s incense. And that might be, yes it’s incense, know that it’s just as dangerous as marijuana.”
K2′s popularity may end up being it’s demise. It’s already banned in much of Europe and, now that trend is picking up in the United States. It’s also cost prohibitive. K2 is now selling for as much, if not more than marijuana.
Yet another effect of Marijuana Prohibition. If marijuana, a substance that has been proven recently to be a much safer alternative to alcohol, cigarettes, prescription pills, etc, were legal, potentially dangerous synthetic drugs like this wouldn’t be so popular. How is it legal for somebody to possess enough alcohol to kill a rhino yet it’s illegal for somebody to carry marijuana, a substance that is physically impossible to OD on.
Alcohol and cigarettes can be attributed to over 500,000 deaths a year in this country, marijuana almost 0. The only way marijuana can kill you is if a cop shoots you after bursting in to your house to look for weed.
The U.S. has the highest usage rate of marijuana in the world, yet the harshest penalties. After 70 years of prohibition, it obviously isn’t going anywhere, so we might as well stop the wasteful spending of billions of dollars every year trying to enforce outdated, draconian laws on a substance that isn’t dangerous at all.
Quite interesting how they are concerned over the possible side effects of this stuff, yet it’s perfectly fine for the pharmaceutical companies to run ads all day long on television for drugs that have a million and one potential side effects. Hmmm….
You know, if my kid repeatedly hit himself in the face with a hammer, I wouldn’t try to get hammers outlawed. I would simply educate him on the negative long-term effects of misusing resources. like hammers. As a parent, sometimes you just have to stpe up and, well, be a parent. There is a quote that says, “You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education.” This is YOUR responsibility, not the Governments OR the Taxpayers.
The bottom line is that ‘Wars on Blank’ always fail. They always have and always will. And, making something illegal, does nothing more than create “criminals”, where there were none before. If there is demand, there will be supply.
Look, this is the land of the free, so you should be personally responsible for your actions and able to do what you want, so long as you are not affecting someone else’s right to Life, Liberty , and in this case, PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. These Legislators have nothing else to do but create laws, which generate cost. LAWS ARE COSTLY and don’t prevent crimes, they just make more criminals and more costs.
EVERY POLITICIAN mentioned here in support of this “Ban” is an enemy of freedom. How do progressive, self-justifying politicians plan to enforce this? That’s right, More Police, More Judges, More Jails, More Taxes! The Government produces no “goods of value”, so when a politician says they are going to “create Jobs” they can only do so by destroying our American freedoms one by one. Marijuana laws didn’t work the first time around, and now that there is are legal alternatives for those who try to operate within the law, Politicians are going to turn these people BACK into “Criminals” while, onece again increasing law enformcent costs. Where’s the common sense in that???
DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN IN YOUR STATE. If marijuana alternatives have already been banned, ask your state legislators repeal these laws. If you don’t care because you are holding out for the legalization of Marijuana, banning legal alternates is a Step Backwards to your cause, so get involved!
Take action today by simply contacting your state representatives and senators via letter, email or fax and let them know that we the taxpayers are not going to put up with more senseless and costly liberty-smashing laws. “If we don’t take action now, we’ll settle for nothing later”.
I wish people would be more careful, especially my loved ones. My friends were telling me about some sort of blueberry K2 incense and I googled it and found out it isn’t legit. The list of fakes I found is scary long, http://www.k2-incense.com. It’s worth checking out if you buy this or know someone who does. Stay safe…..