MBN working to establish source of spice overdoses

The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics is following leads to determine the source of a synthetic drug called spice, or synthetic marijuana, that put more than 30 people in the emergency room over the weekend.

MBN Director Sam Owens said that it's a safe bet the cases in the Jackson metro area are all connected.

"While we don't know for sure, it really seems like they almost have to be," he said.

Officials from the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Mississippi Department of Health said this is the highest number of overdoses they've seen in recent memory. There's even a report of a person who was not transported to the hospital who may have died of a spice overdose.

Other case have been reported on the coast and in Meridian, Philadelphia and Monticello, officials said.

"This is remarkable; from a single event having this many people over such a short period of time is really frightening occurrence," said Dr. Thomas Dobbs, MSDH's state epidemiologist. "And the fact that there are probably cases that have gone unreported, and a potential death it makes it even more frightening. This is not worth risking your life."

UMMC chair of emergency medicine Dr. Alan Jones said doctors began to realize they had a problem on their hands Thursday when they received five patients within two hours.

"Whenever we see a heightened type of pattern like that, it concerns us," he said. "Now since that time on Thursday we've treated 32 to 34 patients that have used spice."

Patients, ranging from age 14 into the 60s, said Jones, showed signs of agitation, hallucination and sweating. Some were even comatose.

Of even greater concern is that the particular derivative of spice that some of the patients have come into contact with is causing muscle breakdown and kidney problems.

"We've had several patients, along with their agitation, (who) have been very combative and violent, which can make the situation a little more difficult to deal with because those patients can be dangerous to our staff, and to other patients and family members, so we have to control them as rapidly as possible," Jones said.

Spice is particularly dangerous because the ingredients can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from batch to batch. It's almost impossible to predict not only what will be in the drug, but how it will interact with the user's body chemistry.

"This is a stark reminder of how dangerous it can be to take chemicals that are manufactured without safety precautions. These are not made with any consideration for the people taking these drugs. They're not regulated, they're not controlled," Dobbs said. "So we strongly advise and vehemently advise that everyone avoid taking these mind-altering chemicals, because there's no way they can be safe under any circumstances."

Some affected were reporting as little as one "hit" off a spice cigarette, Dobbs said.

Jones said spice and other synthetics can have long-term effects on a user, including the brain. He said since there's no antidote or specific therapy that can be applied in the case of a spice overdose, it's hard to tell how long patients will be under medical care.

Owens said that dealers or the source of the spice could be charged with possession, possession with intent, or distribution and sale of a synthetic cannabinoid.

Addiction specialist Dr. Scott Hambleton said the synthetics are available online, which is one reason some people use them instead of natural marijuana. But he stresses that all the variables in the synthetic drugs make them extremely unpredictable.

"Avoid it completely like the plague. For the folks who do use them, it's like Russian roulette. You never know which time you pull the trigger that it's going to result in a gunshot," he said. "You never know when you're going to have a psychotic reaction. There's no way to control the concentration, even the various plant parts in the package itself."

In the last year, at least two high-profile cases involving spice have affected Mississippi. Both happened in September.

Timothy Jones, a South Carolina father of five, was found in possession of "Scooby Snacks," another name for spice, when he drove to Mississippi with the bodies of his children in garbage bags in his car.

Jones dumped the children's bodies in Alabama before returning to Mississippi, where he was stopped by law enforcement at a routine checkpoint.

A week before that, police issued an Amber Alert for 17-year-old Katelyn Beard of Greene County. Witnesses told police she had been shot, put in the trunk of her own car, and driven from the scene by a man she'd met on the Internet.

Her body was found a few days later just off Darden Road in Madison County. Dewayne Thompson, of Jackson, was charged with capital murder.

Witnesses said Thompson was on spice that night, and police said as he tried to lead them to her body that he was coming off the after-effects of the drug.

Owens classified synthetic drugs as a critical problem for law enforcement today.

"It's a significant threat. Probably our most crucial threat right now is going to be use of prescription medications, but this is nonetheless vital to look at," he said. "We see prescriptions, cocaine, meth, and marijuana every day, and this is something we haven't been seeing every day. It looks like it's starting to come back."