SPICE :: The Dangerous New Legal Drug - Documentary on smoking "legal" or "synthetic" marijuana known as "Spice"

SPICE  :: AKA: INCENSE, BOTANICAL POTPOURRI, SALVIA, SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA

First of all, I must say "Spice" is NOT like marijuana and does not make a good substitute for marijuana. It is packaged to appeal to people that smoke marijuana and is especially attractive to those on probation and recieve drug tests because it does not show up as marijuana. That's because it is not marijuana, and in my opinion it should not be legal, or if it is legal, then marijuana should be legal too. Now, before you go calling me a prohibitionist or an anti-drug person, shut your mouth right there. I am all for legalizing marijuana and a dedicated pot-head. As far as drugs, I have tried them all and I must say that spice is way more of a dangerous and addictive drug than marijuana. It has more of an acid LSD or extacy trippy feel with a crack cocaine craving.

As I was driving from Tampa to New Port Richey on US Hwy 19, the traffic was unusually irritating and I could feel the road rage coming on. Being I never travel anywhere with marijuana and it has been a long day and I hadn't smoked since the day before, I decided to stop off at a gas station and pick up a bag of SPICE to "take the edge off" so I could relax the rest of the ride home. There was a HUGE selection to choose from so I asked the clerk what was her most popular selling brand. "Hydro Kush" she replied, but it's the most expensive at $17.00 for a 3 gram bag. "Oooooh, Hydro Kush" I thought to myself, sounds yummy.

I purchased the Hydro Kush and a small glass tobacco pipe and went out to my car in the parking lot and proceded to pack a bowl of the "HYDRO"! Apon opening the bag and smelling it, to my delight it smelling just like a bag of some good home-grown weed. I took a hit off the bowl and WOW! It actually tasted like weed. I passed the bowl to my buddy, Scott in the passenger seat and when he hit the bowl, it even smelled like weed burning to me! This shit was awesome! I thought.

Well, I took a second hit off the bowl and pulled out of the parking lot and back on to the highway. I could already feel a buzz as I stopped at a red light. By the time the light turned green I was stoned to the bone. I suddendly had no idea where I was or where I was going, I kept asking my buddy which way are we going and he couldn't talk, he just stared out the window expressionless as I began to panic. I was in the middle lane and cars were passing me on both sides, I kept tapping the brake because I couldn't tell how far the minivan was ahead of me or I couldnt tell how fast it was going and I wasnt sure if it was braking or not. All I knew was I had to pull over because I couldn't drive, I was scared I was going to get in an accident and I was getting nervous thinking I could black out at any moment.

After parking in the first available parking lot, I sat there the next 25 minutes feeling like I was in a cartoon and tripping on acid. "How the hell is this shit legal?! I kept asking myself, "What the hell!" and "Are you fucking serious?" were among other thoughts going through my head along with an intense paranoid moment. Finally, the super-intense moment had passed and I felt I could drive again.

Getting back on the highway, I realized my friend Scott still hadn't spoke a word. I asked him was he okay several times and he just looked at me as if he couldn't talk. Finally I yelled at him "Talk to me damnit!" His eyes were wide and he said "Talk about what?" Thankfully we were almost home now, I turned down our state road, even though I read the street sign and knew I was going the right way, nothing looked familiar to me. My fried spoke. "Where are you taking me he asked?" with a confused and creepy look on his face. Were going back to my house I said. A minute lsater he spoke again and asked me the same question. "Where are you taking me?" he said. "Where the hell ya think?" I replied.

Still not recognizing anything, I turned on my GPS to figure out where the hell I was and as I turned it on, I saw my road was the next light. That was fuckin weird I thought. Now that I was home, I was telling my roommate and 3 other buddies that were hanging out about how crazy this bag of spice was. Of course, they wanted to see for themselves what I was talking about and the real test was about to begin.

The test subjects: MYSELF, SCOTT, SAMMY, ZACK, DANIEL & MATT

As I showed everyone the bag of "HYDRO KUSH" I warned everyone how strong it was and they all laughed at me when I told them they could not roll a blunt of this stuff and insisted they just try it in a bowl for now. Of course, Sammy thinks he can smoke as much as he desires and he can handle it and basically, he laughed off the warning, packed a lot in the bowl and took 3 of the biggest hits he could possibly take before passing it to Zack. A few bowl packs later, everyone had at least 2 good tokes or more.

SAMMY: Sammy laughed uncontrolably for a good 20 minutes before I accidently ruined his trip with the ultimate buzz-kill telling him Zack was gone and  I thought it was a possibility that the cops might coming. Then Sammy ran off and locked himself in the bathroom for the next 1/2 hour.

ZACK: Zack was affected the hardest and the worst. Talk about a bad trip! First I saw Zack (the cartoon version because I was high too) and he was acting somewhat strange. He looked like he was having a hard time keeping his balance standing so I offered him a chair and told him to have a seat. He declined saying "I'm cool." Okay, I thought as he was moving strangely and walking like a robot. (Of course this fueled Sammy's hysterical laughter) A few seconds later Zack was gone and walking down the driveway toward the road. (it's a long driveway) I ran and caught up to him and kept calling his name. Either he was ignoring me or didnt hear me. I grabed his arm and stopped him and asked him where he was going? "Home" he said. "Dude, you live here, home is that way I said pointing toward the house. "I'm going home." he said. I let go of his arm and he continued toward the road. "What the fuck bro!" I said. Scott caught up with us so I figured Zack was under control and headed back toward the house. A few minutes later, Scott was back and said Zack was gone. This got the paranoid in me kicking in.

MYSELF: Being Zack had wondered off the property I started getting paranoid, I was thinking the worst. First of all, we have only lived at this house in this city for 2 weeks and were over an hour away from familiar teritory. I thought my new neighbors would see him freaking out and call the cops so I ran through the house gathering up everything, legal or not and threw all of my bowls, and marijuana paraphernalia in the lake and dumped the "legal" stuff out in the yard. Why I dumped legal stuff out, I'm not sure, I was just so paranoid and high I didn't know what to think or to do.

SCOTT: Scott was way out in left field throughout it all, however, the spice had a very different after effect on him. When Scott realized that I had wigged out and threw away all of the spice, he was shocked and very upset. He acted as if he was fiending for crack and it got worse as we continued to smoke it the next couple of days.

MATT: Matt is weird anyways and he kept walking around smiling (very unusual for him) saying the same thing over and over "It has a giggley happy effect", "It has a giggley happy effect", "It has a giggley happy effect". Okay Matt, we get your point!

DANIEL: Daniel was rather mellow and quiet, wich is unusual for him. He mostly say in the front room playing video games. When we told him Zack was gone and running up the road freaking out, he looked spacing out and just zoned-out looking around the room. Afterwards, like Zack when he returned, he spent much of the remainder of the day sleeping.

After the crazy trippy feeling wore off after 30-45 minutes, it was followed by a very stoned feeling that lasted several hours longer.
DAY TWO:

Aside from a terrible sleep of waking up every 30 or 45 minutes throughout the night, I sweated heavily, woke up soaking wet from sweat and had weird dreams. I woke up feeling depressed, much the same feeling after doing extacy for a couple of days. Being I had thrown out all of the spice and the weed after my paranoid episode yesterday, the following morning, being we had nothing to smoke! For whatever reason, we decided it would be cheaper, quicker and eaiser to just go to the store and get some spice verses driving almost an hour and then having to wait and then take the risk of driving back with the weed on us. And the best part is it's legal! Right?

Scott was over-excited to get his hands on some new spice. I've known Scott for over 15 years so it's pretty safe to say I know when hes fiending out, and Scott was definately fiending out over some spice. When he did get his own bag, he didn't really want to share and was greedy with it.

to be continued...