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Bluelight Crew
Nowhere in the country have authorities done more to combat the spread of the laboratory-made drugs known as synthetic marijuana and bath salts than South Florida. But a Sun Sentinel investigation found that while poison control calls and drug arrests have dropped, the unprecedented community assault has yielded unsettling side effects — driving the illegal synthetic drug industry even further underground.
On the illicit market, clandestine chemists tinker with their compounds to stay one step ahead of the law, drug dealers ply the ever-evolving wares over the Internet to anyone with a credit card and a mailing address, and area youth know which convenience stores still sell the stuff under the counter.
In South Florida, where one of the nation's biggest manufacturers of synthetic marijuana built a bustling business in roadside warehouses, many teens and young adults are tripping out in ways surprising even to veteran emergency room doctors. And some are dying, destroyed by chemical concoctions doctors say have far worse effects on the mind and body than the marijuana and cocaine they are designed to mimic.
"The more recent products are the least known, and even more dangerous," said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. "People don't know what they're getting. Their favorite brands are changing from one week to the next."
cont. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-synthetic-drugs-crackdown-20130126,0,6021390.story
On the illicit market, clandestine chemists tinker with their compounds to stay one step ahead of the law, drug dealers ply the ever-evolving wares over the Internet to anyone with a credit card and a mailing address, and area youth know which convenience stores still sell the stuff under the counter.
In South Florida, where one of the nation's biggest manufacturers of synthetic marijuana built a bustling business in roadside warehouses, many teens and young adults are tripping out in ways surprising even to veteran emergency room doctors. And some are dying, destroyed by chemical concoctions doctors say have far worse effects on the mind and body than the marijuana and cocaine they are designed to mimic.
"The more recent products are the least known, and even more dangerous," said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. "People don't know what they're getting. Their favorite brands are changing from one week to the next."
cont. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-synthetic-drugs-crackdown-20130126,0,6021390.story
