San Diego's city attorney is looking at new ways to crack down on the street drug called spice. The idea is to use chemistry to ban any synthetic substances that cause a specific reaction in the brain.
The plan was hatched last fall, when San Diego headlines were filled with news about bad reactions to spice — from seizures to hallucinations to difficulty breathing. Spice is a man-made drug designed to react in the brain the same way as marijuana.
San Diego paramedics used to be called to treat people who’d taken spice about 20 to 30 times a month. But in November that number spiked to 62 times. And it climbed from there up to 201 in February, according to data from the city.
Heroin overdoses generated 48 EMS calls in San Diego in February. Meth generated the most, at 208 calls.
But unlike heroin or other drugs, some types of spice can be bought legally in California.
Kathryn Turner, San Diego’s chief deputy city attorney for consumer and environmental protection, recently showed some spice bought in the city. It can also be bought online. The drug was wrapped in brightly colored packages decorated with cartoon characters and names such as Fruit Punch, The Joker and OMG.
"The spice packages are sold as potpourri, but very expensive potpourri," Turner said. "And they look more like candy."
One label reads: "OMG is sold as potpourri, stroke the furry bag."
"The packaging will say it’s not for human consumption, which is very unusual for potpourri," Turner said. "I don’t think people would just eat potpourri. I don’t think that’s usually a concern."
Spice is made using paint thinner to liquify chemicals that make you high and then spraying the mixture onto dried leaves. In 2011, the state banned five chemical compounds used to make spice. But drug makers got around that by slightly changing the molecules in the compounds, Turner said.
"The chemists, and I’ve described them as evil chemists, just slightly change the molecular architecture of these compounds to avoid detection as a controlled substance," she said. "Unfortunately the state of California has not kept up with these chemists."
Because the chemicals keep changing, there’s no way to completely predict how the body will respond. Sometimes that means seizures, comas and hallucinations. While no one has died from a spice overdose in San Diego County in the past year, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office, some deaths have been reported across the country.
Now San Diego is trying to boost its ability to stop spice sales.
"It’s sort of a cat-and-mouse game right now, and we want to get away from that where we’re just listing a compound that could change the very next day and talk about what is it doing to the human body," Turner said.
With help from scientists, city lawmakers aim to ban not just a specific list of chemicals, but any chemical that would cause spice to affect the brain.
"If some of these compounds are out there and it’s got a substantially similar reaction on the human body, those are going to be banned by this ordinance," said Assistant City Attorney John Hemmerling, who is helping write a new ordinance for San Diego.
It will take time to broaden the ban, Hemmerling said. But the idea is that when someone overdoses on spice, law enforcement will find out where they bought it and ask toxicologists to see if the new drug is substantially similar to the ones already banned, he said. Then the people who sold it can face up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
The city attorney aims to bring the new law to the City Council by the end of the month.
