Community | August 15, 2010 | 74 comments

No Booze Sundays So Lets Get Legally Stoned

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JuliusBC
Use of spice climbs in Northern Utah.

OGDEN -- With an increase in the use of spice, an incense smoked to get a high much like marijuana, government agencies are looking at ways to curb the use of the currently-legal drug in the Top of Utah. "There is a definite presence," said Brock Alder, director of the substance abuse division of Bear River Health Department. "It's a real problem."
Spice, which is also known as Black Mamba, Bliss, or Bambay Blue, contains mostly damiana, a shrub with small, yellow flowers that grows in dry, rocky climates generally found in Mexico, California and Texas. The herb acts on the nervous system as an antidepressant to soothe anxiety, nervousness and mild depression. It has a reputation as a relaxant and an aphrodisiac. It is currently sold in tobacco shops and convenience stores as an incense, and is labeled that it is not meant for human consumption.
However, many users buy the incense and smoke it, giving them a marijuana-like, but legal, high. While the drug may be bought and possessed legally, that doesn't mean users won't have to face consequences. Alder said that the health department recently began sending urine drug tests to a lab in California so they could be tested for damiana. He said they have done the testing for less than a month, but they already have had several tests come back positive for the drug.
"Our policy here is, they can't use any mood or mind-altering substances, even alcohol," he said. "We just want them completely clean so we know we have a clean brain (to work with during treatment.)" Capt. Klint Anderson, of the Weber County Sheriff's Office, said officers have seen an increase in people driving while under the influence of spice. "We're starting to see arrests for DUI impairment, and the drug of choice is spice," he said. "It can be legally sold and possessed, apparently. That's where the problem comes in." The problem is while police can observe someone driving erratically, and can witness them fail a field sobriety test, there is no way law enforcement can check their body fluids for traces of the drug, like they can with alcohol or illegal drugs.
"If we have impaired drivers, we have no way to detect blood levels," Anderson said. "It makes it that much more difficult to prosecute." But that doesn't mean the officer won't cite the driver. "We still charge them with DUI," Anderson said. "It just becomes more difficult (to prove in court.)" Anderson said the police department doesn't have access to any urine test like the Bear River Health Department does, but said they would like to be able to.
"We'd like to," he said about the possibility of a urine test. "We see it as a public safety risk." Alder said that while the product is legal, little is known about the effect of the drug. Some clients have spoken of medical issues resulting from the spice, such as seizure-like symptoms or heart palpitations, but nothing has been documented yet.
"Anything that is going to alter your mind is dangerous," he said. "Too many people, when someone hands them something and says 'Try it,' they do. They need to find out what they're trying. They need to understand it's dangerous."

I agree, people shouldn't drive under the influence of anything but if this herb in fact does help people as an antidepressant, soothes anxiety, nervousness, mild depression as well as a relaxant and an aphrodisiac shouldn't it be looked at as a possible solution?

However, I am not so sure that Utah is in need of an aphrodisiac!
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74 comments // No Booze Sundays So Lets Get Legally Stoned

  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  

    • I have a friend that was recently rushed to the emergency room a few months ago. He had stopped breathing and on the way to the ER it was necessary to perform compressions on his chest numerous times as he intermittently stopped breathing on the way. The cause wasn't fully determined but he had recently been going through some difficult times in a relationship and some issues from childhood. They checked his blood for the common things that may cause such a thing but nothing was found.

      He just told me today that on that night he had had a couple of beers, he smoked some of this Black Mamba along with he had taken his antidepressant medicine. He didn't want to tell the emergency room about it for fear of repercussions. Now it is beginning to make sense.

      This happened during the time period when Utah had made some major drug busts and marijuana had become hard to get. The people he was smoking this stuff with normally smoked pot but had none so they defaulted to Black Mamba.

    • 1 year ago
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  
    • JuliusBC:

      similar scenerio with my brother in law, for fear of reprecussions from being caught with weed went the way of vicoden.
      dead at 23 of just bad policy and failure to recognize it

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  

    • if ya think about it, it actualy makes more sense.
      not as a law but a manor of culture, much in the way having tea serves the english, or siesta's serve various soth american countries.
      it would make exastential (religious) thought much more reasoned and less empassioned.

    • 1 year ago
  • mr_tibbles
  • FoosMaster
    • 0
      FoosMaster  
    • mr_tibbles:

      Just because you don't like something is NO reason to make it Illegal or to support the Prohibitionist attitude. Prohibition of Any substance has been proven to be a Complete Failure and will only Enrich Criminals and make Criminals out of the users that are mostly just ordinary otherwise law abiding citizens.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • mr_tibbles
  • mr_tibbles
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • mr_tibbles:

      Well, to be honest with you, I wouldn't recommend maple leafs either. They stink and burn like hell. It took me about an hour to get the nasty taste scraped off of my tongue. It is good that taste buds grow back.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • FoosMaster
    • 0
      FoosMaster  

    • Drugs such as this should be Quickly and Extensively tested for their effects on the body. We do not know enough about the effects this has on people. But, I am Not a prohibitionist and do Not think we should make it illegal. I do however support a way to detect it in someone’s body for reasons of prosecution for DUI.

    • 1 year ago
  • Sparky2U
    • 0
      Sparky2U  

    • Hey dems. go to Kansas man. Weed grows freakin wild everywhere ! Won't get a fly high but then you'll get so stoned! LOL

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • JuliusBC
  • M_i_k_a
  • JuliusBC
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  
    • JuliusBC:

      if we are willing to vomit as a result of alcohol, who knows what we would accept for this.as it is we accept paranioa and insatiable hunger with cottonmouth.if the pissing blood dont hurt i see a whole lot of folks saying fuck it.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • freecrack:

      They had something more on about the hazards of this drug tonight on tv but I didn't have time to watch it. The indications were that it was hazardous and the use was escalating at God speed. I find it ironic that society tries to kill the use of Marijuana and in the end, people run to the next alternate they can find and it appears in this case that death is more likely.

    • 1 year ago
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  
    • JuliusBC:

      that almost makes sense in our nature in how we react to fear.but the fact that in the rescent past we learned herbal doesnt mean safe implicitly.are our attention spans that short?

    • 1 year ago
  • hunzedog
  • thetrimsmith
  • mik661
  • JuliusBC
  • TomTucker
  • samantha420
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • samantha420:

      Homeopathic remedies were widely used until certain money hungry people came up with the concept of pharmaceutical companies. Granted, there are many drugs that do address issues that perhaps homeopathic remedies don't. In some cases, pharmaceuticals can cause an instant reaction during a life saving moment and actually save a life. This video does indicate what many already know and that is there are many great benefits of cannabis. Tobacco leafs used to be used in the treating of cancerous tissues on cattle back many years ago and yet tobacco itself can cause cancer.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • bailey78
    • +1
      bailey78  

    • Oh shit I have some growing in my front yard. I guess I'm going to grow all I want of the damiana plant. I will let Ya'll know how it works.

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
  • bailey78
    • +2
      bailey78  

    • Ok I live in Texas an I am going to see if I can find this growing wild around here. I hope so because they get twentyfive bucks for three grams of the stuff in the store.

    • 1 year ago
  • DisownCashValue
    • +2
      DisownCashValue  

    • The whole DUI argument for this is bullshit because i can drive around high as a kite of oxycotin or whatever legal drug i want and be more of a problem on the road. Why dont we regulate the pharmaceutical companies that kill people everyday instead of worrying about some stupid spice? imagine if everytime you took a drug test to get a new job they tested you for oxy, zoloft, and all the other dangerous shit prescribed legally. the whole country would litterally be out of work, at least more than it is now.

    • 1 year ago
  • JackHerer
  • Billy_Tarter
    • 0
      Billy_Tarter  

    • The active ingredient in spice is a synthetic cannabinoid. Damiana is just a carrier herb and has little, if anything, to do with the "high".

    • 1 year ago
  • DogBoy
  • Sparky2U
  • CalgarC
  • AceBangerTheGuru
    • -4
      AceBangerTheGuru  

    • THE WAR ON DRUGs IS OVER, THE GOVERNMENT NOW CONTROLs ALL DRUG SALES ,IMPORTs,EXPORTs,TAXEs ... THE DRUG WAR IS O.V.E.R. THEY HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THEIR GOAL, TOBE THE MAIN MAN,DEALER,CONNECTION, SORRY BROTHERs,BUT YOU HAVE BEEN,JUST PUT OUT OF biz !!!

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • DisownCashValue
  • ibrake4rappers13
  • ReverandG
    • +1
      ReverandG  
    • ibrake4rappers13:

      I know of dozens of kids who ended up in emergency rooms with life threatening conditions from using the crap. All "herbs" are not safe to consume.
      If you are going to smoke a joint at least make sure you know where it comes from.

    • 1 year ago
  • Sparky2U
  • Billy_Tarter
    • 0
      Billy_Tarter  
    • ReverandG:

      It's impossible to know where ANY joint comes from. If you buy real weed to make a joint, then there's no telling where the weed came from, or whether it's pure or not. It's not any safer than "spice".

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • idealist
  • JuliusBC
  • freecrack
    • 0
      freecrack  
    • ReverandG:

      aparently low grade marijuana will appear as high grade if glass is crushed enough and embedded through out the bud, under a microscope.wich means as it is smoking pot wich isnt lethal, now is because of its lack of regulation through illegality.
      the sooner we get thc through all the same trials everything else gets put through, the sooner it will be correctly assesed.no one is ever going to put it through legit steps, but if they get done independently it serves us the same.

      we need to be getting anorexics stoned.they are already on anxiety meds so the pig out guilt is already taken care of.just one example of how harmless the drug is and how productive it could be if only used in its appropriate capacity.the latteral effect is a systematic re-evaluation of other drugs keeping us from settling for addictive oppiates when thc can be used.
      i mean if you compare thc to any number of psychotropic drugs it wins in effectiveness, as well as side effects are less.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
    • +1
      treewolf39  

    • Fear drugs! Life is dangerous. Sounds like another reason to legalize cannabis. Someone should study why we like to get altered.

    • 1 year ago
  • bc_f
    • bc_f [removed]  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • simplecj
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • simplecj:

      They (Mormons) take money for God all the time. Their temples and stake centers are becoming as numerous as ants. Each stake center now being built is at least a minimum of twelve to eighteen million dollars to build. In my town there are more than you can count in a half hour. In one location there are five in a row. They cover approximately four city blocks. Talk about revenue! Tithing is the legal slot machine of religion.

    • 1 year ago
  • simplecj
    • +5
      simplecj  

    • We just need to end the Drug War and focus on REAL education about 'mind altering" substances. Making something like that illegal has never worked and actually leads to far more problems within the society.

      Take a look at Mexico. The former mexican president Fox has openly come out in favor of legalizing drugs because prohibition has not only failed, but has created the very deadly dangerous situation that is currently tearing the country apart.

      "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." – Abraham Lincoln

    • 1 year ago
  • ayipis
  • simplecj
    • +4
      simplecj  
    • ayipis:

      How about because I can, and who the hell are you to tell me, or anyone else for that matter, that they can't?

      Do you drink coffee, like candy, take any prescription or over the counter meds?? People legally alter their minds everyday, so your point is moot.

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • simplecj
    • +3
      simplecj  

    • I live in Utah and hadn't really heard about spice till a few months ago. Just over the summer it seems I've started hearing people talk about it like it's common place.

      I even know a juvenile probation officer who has tried to warn their kids to stay away from spice, even that they would rather the kids be smoking cannabis than some unknown substance. It can lead to a hospital visit from respiratory or nervous system effects. Racing heart rate and shortness of breath are two I've heard of already.

      From what I hear though, it's really not that similar of a high to cannabis. It's a bit more of a stimulant than cannabis and does not contain any of the same cannabinoids that make cannabis so popular.

      Al least with cannabis we have hundreds of years of documented use with little or no detrimental side effects.

      Legalize it, or we're just going to see more and more of these designer drugs containing compounds we know little to nothing about. Spice is only one of many new one's currently on the market. It would take huge amounts of resources to document, test and classify every new thing that comes out...

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • simplecj:

      They had a huge bust in Utah recently and I believe that is why there has been such a huge increase. This summer is when I first became aware of it as well. I have a friend that is huge pot smoker and they indicated it was impossible for a while to get cannabis anywhere in Utah. But as usual, the law won only temporarily and it is back just as before. The drugs that may be created as a reaction to such things may from time to time become a much larger threat and harder to contain. Crack may be just such an example.

    • 1 year ago
  • Edward_Madill
    • +2
      Edward_Madill  

    • I think one of the things that's being overlooked here is that Spice is not 100% damiana, let alone 100% natural. It contains various synthetic cannibinoids (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/spice_product/spice_product.shtml), including JWH-018. These are legal, and they are obviously fun, but people aren't getting high off of just Damiana - they're ingesting chemicals.

      Why not just legalize the real stuff, and cut off this scary "herbal incense" craze? It's scary to see kids who would normally be afraid to break the law ingesting chemicals that aren't even labeled on the package.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • +1
      JuliusBC  
    • Edward_Madill:

      If they legalize pot, many of the chemicals I mean pills put out by the pharmaceutical companies will take a major hit. There are so many antidepressants being manufactured now by them. Many of the laws are dictated by the power of such companies and their money used by their lobbyists.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • simplecj
    • 0
      simplecj  
    • JuliusBC:

      I doubt it. If you know you want a drink on Sunday, you simply buy it on Friday or Saturday.

      I think it's more with the under 21 crowd who can't legally drink.

    • 1 year ago
  • ReverandG
  • maryol
    • 0
      maryol  
    • JuliusBC:

      some people are consuming spice because they are on probation and can't smoke pot too. I wish they wouldn't because "not for human consumption" is enough for me to keep it out of my body.

      friends of mine who consume it argue with me that it's just as good as pot, yet they don't even know what's in it or what it does to them to produce that partial high. I ask them what drives them to do something so silly? because it's legal. legalize pot and these spice smoking schmucks will make the transition to a healthier lifestyle, hopefully.

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
    • 0
      bailey78  
    • ReverandG:

      Then you can't leave your house with out the chance of going to jail or drive with out the chance of getting a dwi. so just smoke a little Herb an all is good. as a matter of fact i think I will go bum a joint right now.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • simplecj:

      I think for the most part you are correct; however I have seen many adults buying it as well. Recently, Salt Lake County had a major bust and crack down on Marijuana which made it very difficult to get for awhile. The sales of Spice escalated at an exceptional rate. I have yet to try Spice as I am not a big fan of Marijuana. The results for me were undesirable but that is just me.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • ReverandG:

      Agreed but many newcomers to Utah are blindsided by their laws. I am not a big fan of alcohol but from time to time I indulge. I hate feeling like shit the next day and disconnected from my brain. I have had a partial bottle of both Vodka and wine in my fridge for over two years now.

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
    • 0
      JuliusBC  
    • maryol:

      Since the government will never be able to win the battle on Marijuana just like during the days of prohibition with alcohol, they should legalize it and collect revenue. This would help to reduce the drug wars at the borders and also reduce the number of people in our prisons. This would free up many resources to fight real crime and not disband so many families by the imprisonment of some of the parental figures or other members. So I have to agree with you wholeheartedly.

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
    • +1
      eden49  
    • JuliusBC:

      ...give me a home among the hop trees
      with lots of fine weed
      a keg or 2 and a kangaroo
      with "mary" out the back
      and a long neck in me lap
      and an old rockin' chair...

    • 1 year ago
  • JuliusBC
  • eden49
  • JuliusBC
  • JuliusBC
  • JuliusBC
    • +1
      JuliusBC  

    • I agree, people shouldn't drive under the influence of anything but if this herb in fact does help people as an antidepressant, soothes anxiety, nervousness, mild depression as well as a relaxant and an aphrodisiac shouldn't it be looked at as a possible solution?

    • 1 year ago
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