San Diego cracks down on ‘spice’
San Diego is cracking down on the powerful street drug “spice” with an innovative new law that city officials predict will become a model across California.
The City Council on Monday unanimously approved the new law, which aims to reverse a sharp increase in spice overdoses by helping local law enforcement prosecute street dealers and small neighborhood markets that sell the drug.
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Spice, a chemical compound that has also been blamed for worsening San Diego’s homelessness problem, is sometimes called synthetic marijuana because it creates a similar kind of high, only much stronger.
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The drug, which is sometimes sold in packages marked as bath salts or potpourri, is popular with young people and the homeless because there is no age requirement, it’s relatively cheap and it provides a quicker and more intense high than marijuana because it’s synthetic instead of natural.
“Users often view them as legal and a safe alternative to unlawful drugs,” Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said Monday. “The unpredictability of the potency of synthetic drugs, combined with the changing chemical structure with which they are made, makes it a game of Russian Roulette.”
Zimmerman was referring to the makers of spice circumventing a 2011 state ban by steadily adjusting the ingredients they use to stay one step ahead of authorities.
That prevented San Diego from prosecuting two spice dealers arrested last November in connection with a surge in local overdoses.
The new law, which borrows from other successful efforts across the nation, aims to stop that cycle by shifting the focus away from the ingredients in spice to how it affects the brain.
Assistant City Attorney John Hemmerling said the law, which was crafted with help from chemists and doctors, also broadens the compounds that qualify as spice by listing several underlying chemical structures with various potential ingredients included.
“We believe we have come up with an ordinance that helps hold businesses and sellers of this product accountable,” Hemmerling said.
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith agreed, calling the law the “first of its kind in California” combating spice.
“Sometimes it’s a cat and mouse when you’re dealing with criminal activity,” Goldsmith said. “This ordinance is designed to eliminate that cat and mouse and just make it illegal for anyone who sells this type of material.”
Mayor Kevin Faulconer praised Goldsmith’s team for their bold approach.
“This new law will put San Diego on the cutting edge of solving the spice epidemic,” said Faulconer, praising its flexibility in particular. “I believe this ordinance is going to be a model for other cities to follow and help set the standard throughout the state.”
Councilman Todd Gloria, who represents many of the urban neighborhoods where spice is creating problems, said the new law could also save taxpayers money and boost quality of life.
“Spice is dangerous, unpredictable and it’s an unregulated drug that unfortunately has become rampant in too many of our neighborhoods,” said Gloria. “It harms the user’s life, puts them at risk and of course disturbs quality of life for residents, business owners and visitors.”
Spice has been blamed for perpetuating homelessness because someone using the drug is far less likely to seek counseling and social services. In addition, many people on spice are aggressive or act like zombies, making the homeless problem appear harder to solve.
Gloria also noted that taxpayers have spent $3.2 million since March 2015 responding to more than 350 emergency response calls related to spice — $2.4 million for ambulances and $800,000 for fire engines.
The number of overdoses spiked last winter, but has since come back down.
Some have speculated that chemists making the drug had a misstep last fall that they’ve since corrected. City officials said that even if that’s the case, spice at its safest is still a dangerous drug.
The psychological effects of spice have been compared to cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and methamphetamine. It can cause panic attacks, paranoia, psychotic episodes, seizures, vomiting and even death.
Spice, which costs $15 to $20 for a package, is sold under product names like Scooby Snax, Purple Haze and Diablo.
Many small markets selling the drug voluntarily stopped when asked by the city last winter. But city officials said many haven’t.
Goldsmith said he was optimistic about the new law, despite its lack of a track record.
“Certainly there could be challenges since this is new to the state of California,” he said. “We’ve reviewed other states where this has been used and they have been upheld.”
The law must be approved by the council a second time two weeks from now, and would go into effect 30 days later in early July.
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