Denver-area emergency room doctors report outbreak of illness from Spice, Black Mamba
08/29/2013
DENVER – Doctors at the University of Colorado Hospital are warning about a possible bad batch of synthetic marijuana in the Denver metro area.
University Hospital said its emergency department has seen more than a dozen and a half very ill patients within the last 24 hours.
Several of the patients arrived at the emergency room unresponsive.
Each one of them was having a reaction to Spice and/or Black Mamba — two forms of synthetic marijuana, according to Dr. Rich Zane.
Zane said other emergency rooms in the Denver metro area are also seeing numerous patients with ill effects from the drugs.
Doctors say the marijuana substitutes sold under names like Spice, K2 and Black Mamba are typically made up of herbs,
mixed with a powerful synthetic chemical that mimics the effects of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
While the packaging often calls these spices "incense" and says "not for human consumption," some people still smoke it.
Officials with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center told 7NEWS most of the drugs have not been tested on humans
and were never meant to be ingested.
The substance was created in medical labs by a Clemson University researcher as a way to study the effects of marijuana on lab animals.
It has a different molecular structure than marijuana, but was designed to stimulate the same receptors, according to the RMPCC.
"Your as mighty as the flower that grows the stones away"