Q: I like to smoke weed sometimes to relax. But I’m applying for a job that is going to test my urine, and a friend told me I can smoke spice instead of weed and it won’t show up in my urine. Is that true?
A: My answer is “yes, but.” Yes it is true, but I don’t recommend you smoke spice. That stuff can kill you.
Spice is one name for a mixture of plants and chemicals that has been openly sold in smoke shops and gas stations around the country until very recently. It is labeled “not for human consumption” and officially sold as incense for burning. But what really happens is that people smoke it or make tea out of it to get high. Last year, it was the second most popular drug for high school students after marijuana. The appeal of spice was that it was legal to buy and wouldn’t show up in drug tests.
Spice looks like potpourri, a harmless jumble of natural plant material. But there’s nothing natural or harmless about it. The part that gets into your brain is all chemical additives, of various nasty kinds. Remember how I said it’s not for human consumption? I wasn’t kidding. These substances have not been studied or regulated, and the product has been changing fast to try to stay ahead of the law. You don’t know what’s really in there.
Different kinds of spice will have different chemicals, and none of them are safe. Some of the effects of spice include panic attacks, hallucinations and delusions, nausea and/or vomiting, restlessness, dilated pupils and glazed eyes, foggy memory and impaired motor coordination that can last several days. It is also addictive, which opens a whole other slimy can of worms. Call me presumptuous, but if you’re smart enough to be in college, I’m guessing addiction is something you want to avoid.
Spice goes by several other names including K2, fake weed, Skunk, Moon Rocks, Zic Zac, Yucatan Fire, Smoking Camel and Happy Daze.
It has been called synthetic marijuana because some of the chemicals in it attach to the same receptors in your brain as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. But the chemicals in spice stick tighter to those THC receptors, and to some other receptors as well, resulting in unpredictable effects. Smokers in the know have told me the feeling is not the same, calling it a “dirty high,” and people on spice do things that marijuana smokers don’t.
You may have read the stories in the news.
A man in Texas, high on spice, reportedly killed his roommate’s cocker spaniel and then gnawed chunks of flesh off the dead dog. A teenager in Georgia was hospitalized for swelling of the brain. A family is suing a spice manufacturer for the death of their son. People have died, and others have become violent and psychotic. The stories go on.
For a while, the companies that manufactured it were changing the composition faster than you can say “brain damage,” trying to stay a step ahead of federal regulations that would outlaw one chemical at a time, or one recipe. Finally the feds wised up and outlawed all present and future synthetic chemicals and cocktails that could be used in this kind of drug, and the Department of Justice swept across the country confiscating the stuff right and left.
This was called the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act.
So now it is illegal. You can’t see it on the shelves in the smoke shops anymore, and you can’t legally buy it online. I’m not naïve enough to think that makes it unavailable. I expect you know where and how to get it. But in the interest of your health, I urge you to resist. You need those brain cells, and you’re too young to die. If the job is important to you, consider laying off the weed to get truly clean urine.
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Peggy Spencer is a student-health physician. She is also the co-author of the book “50 ways to leave your 40s.” Email your questions directly to her at pspencer@unm.edu. All questions will be considered anonymous, and all questioners will remain anonymous.
