“Synthetic Marijuana” on Page 1 of the New York Times

From O’S News Service September 2, 2015 A front page story in today’s New York Times will leave many readers with the impression that a drug made by bootleg chemists called K2 is in fact synthetic marijuana. Reporter Nick Casey writes:

The people here on this stretch of 125th Street in East Harlem may change, but the drug remains the same: K2, also called synthetic marijuana, a potent mix of herbs and chemicals that has become widely used among homeless people in New York City.

A joint of K2 goes for a dollar or two, far cheaper than food. Many bodegas on 125th Street sell it. A marijuana joint, by comparison, costs about $5. Crowds of up to 80 or 100 homeless people come in on buses from a nearby shelter on Randalls Island, drawn by heroin recovery clinics nearby, and spend the day there under the influence of this cheaper narcotic. The block between Park and Lexington Avenues appears at times to be a street of zombies.

The story jumps to an inner page and describes the people hanging out on the street, focusing on the worst off. It doesn’t explain the relationship between the herbs and chemicals found in K2 and compounds in Cannabis. Maybe the semi-hip editorial page editors of the Times will use the K2 story as a hook to call for safe, affordable access to the real thing in a setting where the destitute and sick won’t be treated like freaks…

The chemicals in K2 that activate the cannabinoid receptors are made by bootleggers who get the formulas from chemical journals. Here’s some relevant background from O’Shaughnessy’s: an interview with John Huffman, the inadvertent inventor of “Spice.”