Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.
One of the latest fads in designer drugs looks like potpourri but smokes like pot.
It's also perfectly legal in Nebraska and Iowa — in fact, it's legal everywhere but Kansas.
“I would compare it to marijuana,” said Matt, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and recreational user. “I would have a hard time telling the two apart.”
He should know. He's in a pretrial diversion program for a marijuana-related offense.
Matt's new substance of choice is known as K2 — other names include “Spice” and “Zohai.”
It's a mixture of herbs, produced in China and Korea, sprayed with a synthetic compound chemically similar to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that gives pot users a high.
The product is so new to the Midlands that lawmakers and law enforcement officials in Omaha, Council Bluffs and Lincoln are only beginning to learn of its existence. Some hadn't heard of it at all until contacted by The World-Herald.
Though K2 and similar substances are banned in Europe, its key ingredients are not regulated in the United States.
Last week, Kansas became the first state to ban K2 and similar products, adding them to the state's list of controlled substances. Missouri may soon follow, making the marijuana-mimicking substance as illegal as a baggie of the real thing.
State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, chairman of the Nebraska Legislature's Judiciary Committee, said last week that he hadn't heard of K2 or related products.
“Based on what I'm just being told, it should be on the banned list,” Ashford said.
Some law enforcement authorities are concerned that the chemical's effects can impair driving and motor skills as readily as marijuana does.
Marilyn Huestis, chief of chemistry at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the online medical site WebMD that such substances “are hijacking the part of the brain important for many functions: temperature control, food intake, perception, memory, and problem-solving.”
There is no data on the toxicity of the chemicals in K2 or how long they stay in the body. In mice, they can lead to a lower body temperature, partial paralysis and the temporary inability to feel pain, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says.
Experts say even the same brands of one of the synthetic THC-like products can be inconsistent, containing different drugs at different times.
“You are playing Russian roulette when it comes to these types of products,” said Dawn Dearden, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the DEA.
“There is no way … to determine the chemical makeup, synthetic ingredients or amounts. Therefore there is no way to determine with any accuracy what the potentially harmful effects might be.”
Missouri authorities say some people who contacted a poison control center after using the substance reported anxiety, hypertension and elevated pulse.
Omaha City Prosecutor Marty Conboy said he and other prosecutors around the country have discussed K2 and its effects.
“It is on our radar,” Conboy said.
The substance already is making a splash on social networking sites and is easily purchased from Web retailers, but an 18-year-old with valid ID and $65 can now get a 3-gram packet of K2 in Omaha.
A reporter last week walked into the Exotica shop at 157 N. 72nd St., presented his ID to the young woman at the counter and made his way down wooden stairs into the store's incense-filled basement.
The K2 was in a glass display case to the left of the cash register. The reporter forked over his $65, got the 3-by-3 resealable silver foil package and left.
Employees declined to comment for this article, and store owners could not be reached.
Ten other Omaha retailers were contacted, but none carried the product.
Matt paid $20 for a gram of K2 on a recent shopping trip in Lincoln. He also bought 9 grams for $90 off the Internet.
“It kind of like … calms you down,” Matt said. “It's a mind thing and a body thing.”
The DEA said it is too early to say which parts of the country are seeing more sales and use of K-2 and similar substances.
But, Dearden said, “It is fair to say the problem is widespread.”
Products such as K2 seem to be catching on with a younger crowd; K2 even has fan pages on Facebook.
“Fact: K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth,” one page reads. “Put two and two together … second best to the real thing! legal + legit.”
Not so fast, Conboy said.
K2 may be legal now, but “we'll see how it plays out in the community.”
This report includes material from the Associated Press.
Contact the writer:
444-1068, johnny.perez@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
