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There is a new recreational drug emerging in the U.S. Spice is a synthetic variation of marijuana that consists of crushed green leaves sprayed with man-made chemicals. When spice is inhaled, it produces a marijuana-like high.

But don’t get too excited 8212; the American Association of Poison Control Centers logged 567 cases of allergic reactions to Spice across 41 states in the first half of this year. Only 13 cases were reported last year, meaning either its popularity or its toxicity is increasing dramatically.

What makes Spice such a frightening substance is that hardly anything is known about its ingredients, the process by which it is made or where it comes from. Sellers claim it is meant to be used as incense and should not be inhaled, but it’s obviously being used for other purposes.

Users experience a wide range of effects, varying from slight light-headedness to hallucinations. Many lawmakers are pushing to ban spice, but there is an opposition claiming prohibition will only hide Spice use, making it harder to control and study.
Spice needs to be banned completely until further studies can be done.

The chemical compounds Spice users are smoking are unregulated and almost entirely unknown. Different brands of spice contain different amounts of various chemicals, so any popularized perception of the experience with this drug could easily prove unreliable.

This places all users at a great risk. This substance should not be legally sold until the ingredients and side effects of all of its various brands have been researched and made clear to the public.

In Texas, a user had a seizure after combining two variations of spice and in Iowa, an 18-year-old committed suicide after an extreme panic attack resulting from Spice use. Private studies have reported that Spice is just as safe as marijuana, but if people are reporting seizures and panic attacks severe enough to cause suicide, there is a serious problem.

Even if 90 percent of people report no negative symptoms after smoking Spice, the drug still should not be sold around the country without users having the ability to know what chemicals are in it. If the majority of produce in the U.S. was sprayed with pesticides that had extremely dangerous side effects on only a few people around the country, we would demand that the chemicals at least be published before they were sprayed on any more fruits or vegetables so people could be aware of the risks.

Some of the known chemicals in Spice were originally produced to help study metabolism and hunger in the human brain, but were never intended for human consumption.

Many of the synthetic chemicals are up to 100 times stronger than THC, the organic chemical found in marijuana. Some argue the prohibition of spice will only hurt the movement to legalize marijuana. I disagree completely.

Spice is labeled as “a synthetic marijuana-like substance,” and if it continues to be sold across the country its chemicals may eventually be used to catalyze the effects of natural marijuana, making an arguably safe substance incredibly dangerous.

Much of the appeal of the drug comes from its ability to sneak through drug screening. This means Spice offers people on probation and those with jobs responsible for protecting and aiding the public to use the drug and suffer no penalties. Abusing Spice has already grown in popularity among the ranks of our armed forces because it cannot be detected by drug tests.

Despite already causing seizures, suicide and panic attack, Spice is still being legally sold across smoke shop counters. Poison Control Centers are receiving calls at an increasing rate concerning the use of this drug. Spice is no incense, it is a dangerous and unmonitored substance that must be regulated or completely outlawed.

8212;Patrick Glendening is a political science and philosophy senior.

-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to dailyaztecopinion@gmail.com.