A D.C. Council committee will weigh a proposal Friday to outlaw synthetic marijuana, moving the District closer to joining the 39 states that have already banned the chemicals that experts warn can be as dangerous as traditional pot.
Under the law Council Chairman Kwame Brown and nine other legislators proposed in November, the District would add stimulants containing any of nearly two-dozen specific chemicals to the city’s controlled-substances law. Those chemicals simulate the effects of marijuana when applied to plant products.
“Kids are smoking this stuff or snorting this stuff … and it gets you higher than marijuana,” Brown said in an interview with The Washington Examiner. “It is a problem.”
| Permissible (synthetic) pot |
| Synthetic marijuana, sometimes called “potpourri,” is legal in the District and 11 states: Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington. However, regulatory agencies in two of those states — Oregon and South Carolina — have restricted synthetic marijuana’s use. |
| Source: National Conference of State Legislatures |
Possession of synthetic pot would be a misdemeanor and carry a sentence of up to 180 days in jail, while convictions for manufacturing or distributing the chemically enhanced substances could bring a prison sentence of up to five years. The council’s Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing on the bill on Friday.
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department said the agency would comment on the proposal at that hearing.
Synthetic marijuana soared to national prominence in 2010 after the federal Drug Enforcement Administration issued a temporary, emergency ban on five chemicals used to make it.
At the beginning of March, the DEA extended the ban for six months.
Still, synthetic pot use appears to be on the rise. In 2011, the National Capital Poison Center assisted in the management of 34 cases of synthetic marijuana use in D.C., 22 of them involving teenagers. But through the first 2 1/2 months of 2012, the center has already recorded 20 episodes.
Across the D.C. area, the numbers are even higher. Last year, the same agency helped manage 128 cases in D.C., Northern Virginia, and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.
Dr. Cathleen Clancy, the associate director of the National Capital Poison Center and an emergency room physician at George Washington University Hospital, said synthetic marijuana products are especially dangerous because little is known about them.
“The dosing is unregulated [and] the substance that is in them is unregulated,” Clancy said. “We don’t really know what the effects of those synthetic products are on the human body.”
Clancy said patients suspected of synthetic marijuana use have displayed various symptoms.
“They’re sometimes very agitated, they’re sometimes very paranoid, and some of them have had seizures,” Clancy said. “The symptoms are pretty concerning.”
