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Photo by Riley Murphy
With the multiple types of synthetic drugs, there also comes multiple ways to use them.
Using this stuff increases
people’s blood pressure
exponentially, heart rate
exponentially, but the worst
thing is that it increases their
body temperature from 107 to
110 degrees. They’re cooking
their brain inside their skull
with using this one time, that
creates brain damage. That’s
like being under water for an
extended period of time and
then being pulled out and
revived. That’s what people
are doing to themselves.
They’re cooking their brain.
Officer Jeremy Davis
“ ”
about them.”
The constant change in chemicals makes
it harder and harder for officials to make
the drugs illegal. One synthetic drug
could be banned, but just one change
in the chemical make-up can make the
synthetic legal in technicalities.
“It takes a while to ban, so people will
use other drugs while the drug is getting
banned,” Davis said.
According to the Poison Information
Center of Tampa, synthetic drugs can
cause agitation, anxiety, a fast heartbeat,
high blood pressure, tremors, vomiting,
paranoia, hallucinations and even seizures
in some extreme cases.
The drugs are sold in the form of
synthetic marijuana, and as a more
recent form called Bath Salts, which are
ingested by insufflating or snorting.
“The use of bath salts for people
getting high is probably one of
the scariest things I’ve seen in law
enforcements as far as new trends go,”
Davis said. “This stuff will mess you
up. It might not kill you the first time
you use it, but it will change you.”
Since the drugs have a complex
chemical makeup there is never any
way of knowing exactly what is in the
drug at any given time.
“You don’t know what you’re exactly
getting,” Anderson said. “You could
be getting laundry detergent mixed in
with baking soda.”
Even though some students enjoy
the feelings that they have on synthetic
drugs, some of their experiences aren’t
what they expect them to be. Instead of
being happy and euphoric, they feel as
if they are in danger.
“The first really scary experience
I’ve had was when I did Jungle Juice,
brain inside their skull with using this
one time,” Davis said. “That creates brain
damage. That’s like being under water
for an extended period of time and then
being pulled out and revived. That’s what
people are doing to themselves. They’re
cooking their brain. That part of your brain
is not functioning anymore because you
cooked it. There’s no going back to ‘okay
I’m normal now,’ after using this one time,
you are different. Part of who you were is
gone. It’s permanent. You come out of this
different.”
Students ignore the risks that come from
doing synthetics, and instead endure the
negative effects.
“I felt really panicked. My heart was
racing, and I didn’t know what was
going on. I was a lot more paranoid of
anything. I got stoned for like 20 or 30
minutes each time,” student said.
Davis has dealt with dozens of
victims of bath salts. In each case the
victims take the extreme.
“They will not sleep for like three
days, they’ll see people who are not
there, they hallucinate about objects
or things that just are not happening,”
Davis said. “We will have calls where
people believe a gun or people with
a gun are trying to break down their
door, we’ve had calls where people
believe their house is full of snakes
and that they’re trying to get them,
we’ve had other calls where people
are just running and acting completely
incoherent claiming that a demon
ripped off their arm. Almost all of them
see evil, or demons that are after them
or trying to get them. It seems like over
and over again that’s what you hear.”
After taking synthetic drugs,
students describe the feeling as being
anxious no matter what type of
synthetic they take.
“I always feel the same, and I always
feel crazy. I know that it messes with
your nervous system. It makes me
anxious and it makes me jumpy,”
student said. “It has the same effects
[each time], and there are different
kinds that you can try. They all have
different feelings, and I guess it’s fun
to try the different kinds. I always feel
anxious no matter what though”
The effects that happen to someone
on the synthetics seems to be
psychological, and self-inflicted.
“I convinced myself that I saw
things,” student said. “I convinced
myself that my house was haunted,
because I set stacks of DvDs at the
bottom of my stairs, and thought that
demons had set them there because I
had smoked the drug Demon.”
The amount of drugs used plays an
impact on the after effects, which last
for hours, while the high itself only lasts
a mere half hour.
“It depends how much you have,
because the days you have a lot, that
night I feel crazy, I can’t sleep and my
heart is pounding out of my chest and
I feel dizzy,” student said. “The after
that was the scariest thing,” Tiffany said.
“We almost forgot things. We didn’t say
anything; we just pulled over and started
walking. Your mind tells you things to do,
and then your body just goes along with
it. Your mind acts before your body has a
reaction to it.”
The effects on people are affecting them
internally, but they don’t know exactly
what is happening to them which can lead
to deeper problems later on.
“Using this stuff increases people’s
blood pressure exponentially, heart rate
exponentially, but the worst thing is that
it increases their body temperature from
107 to 110 degrees. They’re cooking their
effects you feel kind of tired. After I’m
done doing Demon I feel more hostile, and
I’m more touchy than normally, so that’s
probably a negative side effect. I don’t
think that there are any other negative side
effects.”
Going into harder drugs such as bath
salts doesn’t start randomly Davis said.
“It starts somewhere. It’s a progression.
Where does it start? Alcohol and
marijuana,” Davis said. “Someone doesn’t
wake up one day and go to a party and
think to themselves that they’re going to
inject themselves with something called
bath salts into my body and see if I get high
off of it. It doesn’t start there, it starts way
back when people start abusing stuff.”
The environment that someone is in
effects the way that people on the drugs
feel. If there is high tension or anxiety
around them, the person on drugs feeds off
of that energy.
“I’ve done demon other times but the
way [people] made me feel, made me feel
like everything was evil and that everyone
in McDonalds, they just knew,” student
said. “Then there are times where I’ve done
it with people and went to the park and
it was like the best feeling. So I think that
your environment has a lot to do with it, the
people your with, and you need to be with
people you trust and have fun with.”
Davis is confused by the way that people
with addictions try to search for the next
best high, rather than focusing on trying to
stay clean.
“I don’t know what a chemical
dependency does to someone’s brain, but
it makes them think that they need to have
something better,” Davis said. “They think
that they need to reach that high again.
They can never attain that high again, so
they keep trying new stuff until something
happens.”
Additional reporting done
by Elizabeth Waskevich
Different names of synthetic
drugs: K2, Spice, Genie,
Demon, Mr. Nice Guy, Yucatan
Fire, King Kypto, Vanilla Sky,
Purple Rain, Pixie Dust
Symptoms of synthetic
drugs: Hallucinating, increased
body temperature of 105°
and higher, profuse sweating,
uncontrolled twitching of the
head (ticking), uncontrolled
muscle spasms
Charges for being caught
with synthetic drugs:
Depends on the drug type,
and the quantity. Charged as
a misdemeanor, similar to that of
being caught with marijuana