A legal high: Examining designer drugs

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Some might dabble in legal designer drugs, thinking they're an alternative to, or a softer version of something like marijuana. But they've proven to be risky and dangerous -- perhaps worse than even some of their illegal counterparts, experts told Target 8.

Chris Grondman has gotten high on K2, often known as spice, or synthetic marijuana.

"I actually tried walking into my door in my bedroom," said Grondman, describing the experience. "I opened my door, and the next thing I know, I walked into it."

His friend, Jon Demorest, went with him to get the K2.

"He's like, 'we're supposed to tell you guys it's an incense, and it's not made for smoking,' " Demorest said of the experience at the shop. "'But you can smoke it anyway.' We were like, all right."

State legislators recently outlawed K2 in Michigan.

But Target 8 went undercover and found many similar drugs -- known as spice, or incense blend -- on the market.

When our investigator went inside the Holland shop Nirvana, and asked for K2, an employee answered: "Spice. I do have blended incense, yes."

Those blends aren't the only designer drugs Nirvana had in stock.

"We figured out a way to do it on our own, to match the recipes, and come up with something that was kind of different," the shop employee told Target 8.

Nirvana sells its own mix of bath salts, a drug said to mimic the effects of cocaine and methamphetamine.

"It looks just like coke when you grind it up," the Nirvana employee said.

Asked Target 8: "It looks like coke?"

"Yep."

"I've heard it's stronger than coke," the reporter said.

Answered the worker: "Yeah, it is."

Kathleen Vivio is an emergency room nurse in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She said these bath salts -- snorted, smoked and injected -- are especially popular among teens and those in their early 20s.

"We get 'em on a cot and they're swinging their arms around, and they're saying things -- they don't even know what they're saying," Vivio said. "They're swearing (and) they're threatening."

People high on the bath salts punch and kick, too.

"We get spit on, we get pinched, we get bit," Vivio said. "We worry about ourselves ... They're just out of control."

The Nirvana employee said the store has scaled down its version of the bath salts, and hasn't heard of any customers suffering from bad reactions. Still, police agencies are more than aware of this trend.

"We just need to educate people, and let them know what could happen to them when it comes to being paranoid or hallucinating, and or possibly dying, if they overdose on these drugs," said Jeff Pratt, of the Hastings Police Department.

The detective sergeant works about two blocks from the Smoky Mountain Smoke Shop.

When our Target 8 investigator went into the store undercover, requesting K2, a clerk took the reporter to a back room, where the shop keeps its incense blends.

An employee explained why stores can't carry K2 anymore.

"Everybody and their brother was bootleggin' it in their garage and stuff," the Smoky Mountain Smoke Shop worker said. "So, if you go to Lansing, it's different than Grand Rapids or Florida. Everybody made their own and called it K2."

And that's an even bigger part of the danger involved with designer drugs, authorities say. There's no real way to know what's in them, because all the ingredients are typically not listed on the bag.

And as for the outside of the bag?

"Not for human consumption," the Nirvana worker said, reading aloud. "Which, basically, it's not. You choose to be a dummy and smoke it. That's on you. Do I sell it, knowing that it's going to be smoked? Yeah."

One Nirvana customer said she smokes incense, ranging from $10 to $20 per bag, in place of marijuana.

"They smoke better in a bowl, but you can still roll 'em up," one Nirvana customer said. "... Yeah, I've rolled up. Yeah."

And it's legal.

"A child could go in and buy this stuff legally," said state Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge. "They can't buy cigarettes. They can't buy beer. But they can buy something even worse."

Designer drugs are popping up so fast, state lawmakers can't keep up. Currently, it takes months to ban a drug.

"We think we can react faster to any new rogue scientist making up a new chemical," Jones said.

But that's only if his proposed legislation is passed and signed.

Jones wants to give the Michigan Department of Community Health the power to ban any potentially dangerous substance temporarily, until the state police crime lab can determine whether it should be legal.

Only the federal Drug Enforcement Agency has that power.

Vivio likes the idea of the state having that ability.

"I know that people don't like laws, but if it's going to save your child from having a stroke, or permanent brain damage or hurting someone or themself, then I guess we have to do something like that," Vivio said. "Because they're not strong enough to do it themselves."