Some of the older cannabinoid synthetics were alright, some actually pretty good, such as the CP-series and WAY-series compounds, especially loved HU-210 (although hyperpotent by weight, its very, very long lasting, so careful usage you could be set for a long time, and it was very dissociative indeed)
IMO where it really degenerated was when they stopped using the indole core and switched to an indazole, the results typically being ultrashort-acting (20 minutes for some), and there were some that were easily potent enough to be used as a weapon.
Indeed, I actually did, once. Was faced with two wouldbe-muggers. Actual 'knives get pulled out' open warfare hadn't broken out JUST yet, at the time, but they were going to, it was inevitable. So I attempted to act scared and afraid, and offered a bong of 'weed' as a peace offering, knowing they'd take it and horf it down in one. Which they did. It wasn't weed, it was pot-scented herbal material laced with an indazole cannabinoid of a seriously ultrapotent cannabinoid, active fully at 10-25 micrograms or so, an cumyl-substituted indazole thing, short acting but extremely powerful, probably more potent than fentanyl, since I'd figure most people could tolerate a single 10-25ug dose of fent, and it had just enough time between the first guy toking a bowl, for the second one to do so, before they both dropped to the ground, convulsing in a fullblown tonic-clonic fit. Just right for me to go and give them both a good hard kicking. Unfortunately an ambulance turned up before I could drag them both to the nearby canal bank and dump them in the drink to drown.
But the both of them, after the stuff kicked in, down and having seizures within a few seconds. I'd NEVER have toked a full bowl of the stuff, a few flakes of the herbal substrate was enough. (to put it in perspective, they used to make an e-liquid version containing the same cannabinoid that contained 1mg/ml, and just a couple of tokes from the e-fag was totally sufficient to put me on the deck, stoned as a motherfucker, and even when using a bottle-bong (without water) or a pipe, a couple of milligrams of the tar that collected on the side of the bottle, or from a pipe bowl's screw-threads was still enough to hammer me sideways.)
The effect that it had on those two stupid would-have-been attempted muggers was dramatic alright, and I doubt that hitting them with a high-end stungun would have downed them any more effectively. They'd have stayed standing for longer after a stab to the heart, possibly, assuming the blade wasn't withdrawn and left to plug the wound. Could have blasted the pair of them with a face full of buckshot with a sawn-off double barreled shotgun each, and excluding the end result being fatality in the case of a shotgun blast, then it'd have been just as reliable in putting them down. Don't know if either of them survived the hyperpotent cannabinoid mega-overdose (as said, literally a pinch between fingertips, and a few flakes being allowed to fall from it into the bowl of a bong was quite enough, a bowl jam-packed with the stuff and compressed in hard would have felled a fucking rhino.)
Not my fault they were stupid and greedy and scumbags out to rob people. Made for a whole lot easier of a way to incapacitate them than having to go straight to the beating. Knock 'em down seizing first and THEN kicking the fuck out of them, since I couldn't exactly go ahead with the drowning I had as my preferred option in front of an ambulance crew, saved a lot of effort that would have been needed for a 2-on-1 fight. Which given my being outnumbered would quite possibly have had to involve killing one of them quickly in order to deal with shithead no.2 and avoid being stabbed in the back etc.
Some people have it coming, and those superpotent cannabinoids can be just what is coming, if you happen to fuck with an autie who favours using their brain first and brawn second when possible. And hey, I didn't FORCE them to ingest a massive overdose of a cannabinoid as, or quite probably significantly more potent than fentanyl (I wouldn't even feel 25ug of fent, that much of that fucked up indazole cannabinoid would knock me unconscious in a few seconds), they took the bong after I took a LIGHT toke off it, and both shitheads voluntarily hit a full, packed bowl. Gave them a battering while they were down (again, fuckers had it coming)
I didn't lie either. I did say it'll get them stoned and it was fucking strong stuff.
And the bans on the early waves of synthetics, which were, IMO for a large part fairly benign, they forced the producers and vendors to start scraping deeper and deeper at the bottom of the barrel, churning out ever more dangerous drugs, like even-numbered carbon chains with the typical potency enhancing terminal fluorine, fine on an odd-numbered C-chain on the indolic or indazolic 1-position nitrogens but an even-numbered chain with a terminal fluorine ends up producing fluoroacetate as a metabolic byproduct.
And those oddball cannabinoids with an aminoacid (IIRC is was valine, or isoleucine, might be mistaken on that though) 3-position terminal substitution that appear to possess a (lethal) toxicity unrelated to cannabinoid activity, the shit that caused waves of deaths in eastern europe. If these fucking bans hadn't happened, the distributors wouldn't ever have stooped to cranking out such inherent poison, and the synthetics would have stayed with the relatively safe first waves of such compounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_fluoroacetate thats fluoroacetate for you. Nasty as hell and whilst theoretical antidotes or supportive measures have been tested in animals, no hospital will have access to these, and for someone poisoned by fluoroacetate to a degree that could prove fatal, they are, in a word, up shit creek without a paddle. Fucked. Buggered. Dead meat waiting for an afterlife. Nothing they can do but try and treat the symptoms. Usually with no success. About the most that can be done for a victim of fluoroacetate poisoning at a lethal dosage, is to put a bullet in their head and end it quicker and cleaner. Fucking nasty ass way to go, too.
I even got a couple of head-shops to take these flurobutyl-substituted cannabinoids off the market and dump their stocks, after explaining what fluoroacetate was, what it does, how untreatable (and cumulative) poisoning is, even sublethal dosages will damage brain, lungs, heart, reproductive organs especially, although there isn't any body tissue that WON'T be harmed, grown nails and hair being the only exceptions, since they are not living to begin with) and that they would produce it as a metabolic byproduct.
so no yield what so ever. Long story that one.
