Cannabis and Synthetic Cannabinoids

Here's a story. Once upon a time, or rather over a period of 150 years in the recent past, the world decided to prohibit one of the best recreational plants that mother nature had created. It was a plant with many medicinal properties, and provided people with a safe and healthy way to cope with the world. Due to this, it was vastly popular among many people world wide. Some people, however, did not like the fact that not much money could be made out of a plant that anybody could grow anywhere, especially if the smoker was someone that they felt needed to be kept under control or exploited. So gradually these vested interests pushed their agenda until the cannabis herb was banned worldwide and people were imprisoned for using it. In the place of cannabis - to keep the cannabis lover distracted and in keeping with the new found love for everything synthetic - some other people started creating what is known as synthetic cannabis. Synthetic cannabis mimicked the appearance of natural cannabis but was made of a cocktail of chemicals that provided dangerous, and even fatal, effects without any of natural cannabis's medicinal benefits. Synthetic cannabis was made available in many places and nobody stepped forward to crack down on it because, well, what could be more harmful than natural cannabis? Some pharma companies, while aggressively opposing cannabis legalization, decided that they could make some money out of its compounds. So they synthesized specific compounds to make patented drugs that, with government and regulatory approval, enabled them to make a lot of money as a prescription pharmaceutical drug. A few years back, Vice reported that 'K2 — the street name for plant matter sprayed with synthetic chemicals, designed to mimic the effects of marijuana’s active ingredient — is currently America's cheapest way to get high. The drug is often sold at corner stores, labeled as potpourri and unfit for human consumption. A bag of K2 sells for $5 to $10, while a joint goes for just $1. But the drug's dangerous side effects have taken a toll on a wide variety of communities across the country, particularly in New York City. US poison control centers received more than 6,000 K2 calls in the first nine months of 2015, around a quarter of those calls came from NYC' 

 
Synthetic cannabis took effect on society and its use became widespread, including among gullible young people, mainly because it was very difficult to detect but very easy to buy, and some of it was very cheap, unlike natural cannabis that by this time was very difficult to buy, extremely expensive and very easy to detect because of its trademark pungent smell that was easily recognizable by most people. The journal Cell reports that  'Often abused by adolescents and military personnel to elude detection in drug tests due to their lack of structural similarity to delta9-THC, SCBs [synthetic cannabinoids] are falsely marketed as safe marijuana substitutes. Instead, SCBs are a highly structural diverse group of compounds, easily synthesized, which produce very dangerous adverse effects occurring by, as of yet, unknown mechanisms. Therefore, available evidence indicates that K2/Spice products are clearly not safe marijuana alternatives.' This is like someone coming and plucking out all the herbs in your kitchen garden while somebody else comes in and replaces them with plastic herbs that look a bit like the real ones. Unless you looked closely you wouldn't make out that they were fakes. And many people didn't. Being unaware about what the real natural cannabis looks like, or just out of sheer desperation since natural cannabis was inaccessible, they bought the cheap synthetic cannabis which was essentially crushed leaves sprayed with dangerous chemical combinations meant to give you a high.

So a youth may be sitting in his bedroom in his house consuming synthetic cannabis undetected while his mother might be calling up the police to say that the neighbor was consuming natural cannabis because she could smell it. Live Science reports that 'For example, the researchers found that students who had used synthetic cannabinoids were more likely to have also used substances like alcohol, heroin and ecstasy than individuals who used marijuana but not synthetic cannabinoids. In addition, those teens who used synthetic cannabinoids were more likely to report having engaged in injury- or violence-related behavior, including physical fights or riding with a driver who had been drinking.' Even officials in many places promoted synthetic cannabis saying that it was the answer to many problems and had medical benefits. All this kept happening until suddenly there was a spike in deaths and the appearance of violently ill individuals at hospital emergency rooms. This was traced to synthetic cannabis and the crackdowns and building of public awareness on it started. Did that solve the problem? No.

Manufacturers of synthetic cannabis discovered that when one type was banned by officials all they needed to do was to slightly alter the chemical structure, so that it once again became legal and undetectable by regulators. This modified form was quickly available on the street till it was detected. This cycle has gone on with manufacturers staying one step ahead of the regulators by constantly changing the chemical composition to remain undetected and ahead of the law. Fatalities continue to rise and the usage of synthetic cannabis spreads far and wide across the world driven by international gangs that manufacture it at various locations, including home labs, and then distribute it world wide. Vulnerable and susceptible persons who do not understand the differences between natural and synthetic cannabis end up buying and using the synthetic cannabis. The highly addictive nature of these compounds leave these persons with severe physical and mental damage, and often on the streets, since nobody wants to entertain them as their behavior turns erratic, violent and anti-social. UNODC, in its World Drug Report 2020, says 'Individual NPS hardly ever establish their own significant market. However, evidence from Europe suggests synthetic cannabinoids are a significant problem among marginalized sections of society such as the homeless and prison inmates. NPS use in prisons was reported by 22 countries in Europe, with most of those countries identifying synthetic cannabinoids as the main challenge'  Europe PMC published a study which said that - 'Review of the literature illustrates the hazards associated with SC [synthetic cannabinoids] use. A range of severe toxicities affecting numerous systems has been identified, such as arrhythmias, myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, psychosis, suicidal ideation, seizures, acute tubular necrosis, and intracranial hemorrhage. Additionally, a recent outbreak of coagulopathies and at least 4 associated deaths due to SCs tainted with brodifacoum have been reported. Discussion: Synthetic cannabinoids may be perceived as a safer alternative to marijuana; however, SCs can be more potent at the cannabinoid receptors and in turn have greater toxicities.'

Everybody loves synthetics. Synthetic clothes to replace natural ones, synthetic medicines to replace natural medicines, synthetic drugs to replace natural drugs. Now we see synthetic drugs that replace other synthetic drugs. With heroin becoming difficult to produce due to the scarcity of the opium plant, and cocaine becoming difficult to produce due to the scarcity of the coca plant, humans synthesized fentanyl and methamphetamine in the labs. Most people who buy these synthetic drugs cannot make out the difference between fentanyl and heroin, or methamphetamine and cocaine, or synthetic cannabinoids and cannabis. For the rich, when the price quoted by the seller for fentanyl or methamphetamine is close to that of heroin or cocaine, that is good enough reason to buy it, even though it costs a fraction of the selling price to manufacture the drug. For the poor, the easy availability at lower rates that the seller provides - to ensure that market penetration is maximum - makes them think that they are living like the rich. As long as the powder is white, it must be high quality, the stuff of the rich. After all, that's what medicine looks like, isn't it? Not those green flower buds of ganja, sticky with resin, which look like cow dung or those dark brown lumps of hashish that look like goat shit...That is what the peasants smoke...We, the elites smoke, inhale and inject white powders...People who see a person using a pipe, bong or vaporizer to inhale synthetic cannabinoids, fentanyl or methamphetamine will come to the conclusion that the person is smoking cannabis. When the person dies of smoking a synthetic substance, the people around will say that he or she died from cannabis addiction. Such is the imbecility of the world we live in. And the manufacturers and peddlers of these synthetic substances - the legal and illegal pharmaceutical companies - will do all they can to promote the misinformation. Like a virus called Covid to cover up for synthetic drug related deaths, and not only that, to sell even more synthetic drugs...Rachel Carson, writing her book Silent Spring, says '"The major features of cellular organization, including, for instance, mitosis, must be much older than 500 million years old - more nearly 1000 million," wrote George Gaylord Simpson and his colleagues Pittendrigh and Tiffany in their broadly encompassing book entitled Life. In this sense the world of life, which is surely fragile and complex, is incredibly durable through time - more durable than mountains. This durability is wholly dependent on the almost incredible accuracy with which the inherited information is copied from generation to generation. But in all the thousand million years envisioned by these authors no threat has struck so directly and so forcefully at that 'incredible accuracy' as the mid-20th century threat of man-made radiation and man-made and man-disseminated chemicals. Sir Macfarlane Burnet, a distinguished Australian physician and a Nobel Prize winner, considers it 'one of the most significant medical features' of our time that, 'as a by-product of more and more powerful therapeutic procedures and the production of chemical substances outside of biological experiences, the normal protective barriers that kept mutagenic agents from the internal organs have been more and more frequently penetrated.'

The synthetic bug is catching the legal cannabis industry as well. We have synthetic cannabinoids in the form of dronabinol and nabilone created and marketed by the pharmaceutical industry that opposes the legalization of natural cannabis. Epidiolex is a US federally approved drug, manufactured and marketed by GW Pharmaceuticals. The synthetic pharmaceutical industry opposes the legalization of the natural cannabis plant, as there is no scope for profits if anyone can grow the plant at home. It is better to create a synthetic version covered by patents, and which looks like all the other synthetic medicine that the pharma company can own and market. MJBizDaily reports that 'Data was drawn from more than 4,000 people with COPD in Ontario who were over the age of 66 from 2006 to 2016. The patients were divided into two groups—new users of dronabinol or nabilone and those who never used synthetic cannabinoids. While patients who began treatment with either cannabinoid were no more likely to be hospitalized for COPD or pneumonia, they were significantly more likely to die of any cause. And patients who received higher-dose cannabinoids were much more likely to be hospitalized with COPD or pneumonia (178 percent) and to die of any cause (231 percent).' Breathing problems and pneumonia? That's symptoms of Covid, no?

 

We see the synthesis of delta8-THC in the labs increasingly these days. This is due to the propaganda against the naturally occurring delta9-THC which is the most medicinal compound in the cannabis plant. The argument that natural delta9-THC gets you high, and getting high is a sin, immoral or not desirable is at the basis of this aversion to delta9-THC. So what if the alternative kills you. The arrival of delta8-THC has government regulatory bodies scrambling to try and control it. MJBizDaily reports that 'Delta-8 THC is an isomer of the psychoactive cannabinoid that occurs naturally in the cannabis plant, delta-9 THC. Delta-8 THC is rare in nature but can be easily synthesized from CBD, giving rise to products that offer intoxicating effects without needing to be sourced from marijuana, which isn’t legal in all states and remains illegal under federal law.' Leafly reports that 'Nearly all delta-8 THC products are sold outside of state-licensed and state-regulated cannabis industries. In that unregulated space, there are no rules to prevent bad actors from making and selling potentially toxic products. That’s a pressing and consistent concern we heard from regulators, lab technicians, physicians, and other experts.'

 

The best way to prevent synthesis of cannabis compounds, and the high demand for them, is through the complete legalization of natural cannabis containing as much THC as nature creates. There are many people who love to get high in natural ways, and cannabis with THC is one of the best ways to get high. The fact that it is the best natural medicine in the world probably shows that getting high in natural ways is healthy for the body and mind. The journal Nature reports that 'The technological provenance of cannabinoids might not matter as much to the pharmaceutical sector, where consumers tend to be less averse to genetic engineering. But according to Ethan Russo, director of research and development at the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute in Prague, biochemically derived cannabinoids, even when mixed and matched into therapeutic formulations, will probably never equal the botanical synergy of the hundreds of molecules that are found in cannabis. The existence of this ‘entourage’ effect is not universally accepted. But to Russo, “The plant is nature’s design for this panoply of chemicals”.' Running, being close to nature, sex and meditation all make you high, which is why they are healthy. Natural intoxication is one of the great pleasures that make this world a wonderful place. Even other species enjoy it. Without natural intoxication, society thinks that this world is dreadful, and another world awaits them in the afterlife, and so they reject and try to destroy this world where countless beings live in bliss. This is one of the major drivers for human-induced destruction of the planet. For the rich who amass wealth at cost to the planet and the human future, the better world is somewhere in the future that they hope to buy with their amassed wealth. They say that to strive for this future world, one must abstain from anything natural that makes one intoxicated or high. Nature must be stamped out by human creations, since nature is the enemy. The synthetic substances to create a synthetic world without nature...Fake plastic trees...

If you ask any person, who has become a victim of synthetic cannabis, what it is that they want most, many are likely to say that all they want is the real natural cannabis and to kick the awful habit that has got them hooked to synthetic cannabis and damaged their lives. The journal Cell reports that 'Power, who has published a book on the internet drug trade (Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That’s Changing How the World Gets High), concludes that public health would be best served if the relatively safe substances like cannabis and magic mushrooms were legalised and put under official quality control. If people were allowed to smoke cannabis, there would be no demand for a confusing variety of new and untested cannabinoid products.' So have the people who decided to ban natural cannabis gone back and corrected their terrible mistake so as to save the lives of these people and prevent others from taking up the habit? No. All over the world governments and policy makers remain silent on the issue of legalizing natural cannabis once again, while the manufacturers and sellers of synthetic cannabis and all things synthetic go about openly destroying numerous lives. And the story goes on, another nightmare created by our society, with its links to nature severed or hanging by a thread...

Related articles

The following list of articles taken from various media speak about the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of yours truly at the time of reading the article. 

 

'Delta-8 THC is an isomer of the psychoactive cannabinoid that occurs naturally in the cannabis plant, delta-9 THC.

Delta-8 THC is rare in nature but can be easily synthesized from CBD, giving rise to products that offer intoxicating effects without needing to be sourced from marijuana, which isn’t legal in all states and remains illegal under federal law.

The FDA warned, without elaborating, that delta-8 THC “may have potentially harmful by-products (contaminants) due to the chemicals used in the process.”'

https://mjbizdaily.com/fda-cdc-issue-delta-8-thc-warnings-after-100-plus-in-us-end-up-in-hospitals/

 

'Delta-8 THC products have exploded in popularity in the past year, especially in states that haven’t yet legalized the adult use of cannabis.

The legal status of delta-8 continues to evolve (more on that here), but there’s a question consumers should ask before considering delta-8’s legality: Is it safe to consume?

Nearly all delta-8 THC products are sold outside of state-licensed and state-regulated cannabis industries. In that unregulated space, there are no rules to prevent bad actors from making and selling potentially toxic products.

That’s a pressing and consistent concern we heard from regulators, lab technicians, physicians, and other experts.'

https://www.leafly.com/news/health/is-delta-8-thc-safe-heres-what-the-experts-say

 

'Data was drawn from more than 4,000 people with COPD in Ontario who were over the age of 66 from 2006 to 2016. The patients were divided into two groups—new users of dronabinol or nabilone and those who never used synthetic cannabinoids. While patients who began treatment with either cannabinoid were no more likely to be hospitalized for COPD or pneumonia, they were significantly more likely to die of any cause. And patients who received higher-dose cannabinoids were much more likely to be hospitalized with COPD or pneumonia (178 percent) and to die of any cause (231 percent).'

https://mjbizdaily.com/synthetic-cannabinoids-linked-to-increased-hospitalizations-and-deaths-in-older-adults-with-copd/

 

'An analysis of NPS reported to UNODC suggests increasing diversification in the NPS market until 2015, followed by a trend towards stabilization in the number of new substances arriving on the market in individual countries, at an overall rate of more than 500 NPS per year, with 528 synthetic NPS and 13 plant-based NPS reported in 2018. While there was a decrease in the number of new synthetic cannabinoids arriving on markets worldwide over the 2014–2018 period, the number of NPS with stimulant effects increased, and the number of newly emerging NPS with opioid effects rose sharply, from 7 substances in 2014 to 48 in 2018. That increase represents a rise from 2 per cent of all NPS in 2014 to 9 per cent in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The major features of cellular organization, including, for instance, mitosis, must be much older than 500 million years old - more nearly 1000 million,' wrote Geroge Gaylord Simpson and his colleagues Pittendrigh and Tiffany in their broadly encompassing book entitled Life. 'In this sense the world of life, which is surely fragile and complex, is incredibly durable through time - more durable than mountains. This durability is wholly dependent on the almost incredible accuracy with which the inherited information is copied from generation to generation.'

But in all the thousand million years envisioned by these authors no threat has struck so directly and so forcefully at that 'incredible accuracy' as the mid-20th century threat of man-made radiation and man-made and man-disseminated chemicals. Sir Macfarlane Burnet, a distinguished Australian physician and a Nobel Prize winner, considers it 'one of the most significant medical features' of our time that, 'as a by-product of more and more powerful therapeutic procedures and the production of chemical substances outside of biological experiences, the normal protective barriers that kept mutagenic agents from the internal organs have been more and more frequently penetrated.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'Where data are available, they show a steady decline in the use of NPS in Europe, but such substances have established themselves in some marginalized groups in society, such as the homeless or people in prison, among whom the smoking of synthetic cannabinoids has been identified as a problem. In Europe, the use of NPS in prisons was reported by 22 countries, with synthetic cannabinoids identified as posing the main challenge and health risks (16 countries), whereas the use of synthetic cathinones in prisons was reported by 10 countries, NPS with opioid effects by six, and new benzodiazepines by four countries. In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf


'Data on the United States also indicate a marked decline in the use of NPS. In particular, the prevalence of synthetic cannabinoid use among twelfth-grade students fell from 11.4 per cent in 2011 to 3.3 per cent in 2019. Similarly, the use of ketamine fell from 1.7 to 0.7 per cent over the same period, and the use of “bath salts” (synthetic cathinones) dropped from 1.3 per cent in 2012 to 0.6 per cent in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available. This happened in the context of a deterioration in the reputation of many of those substances among young people, in parallel to several waves of controls of synthetic cannabinoids and synthetic cathinones at the national level during the 2010–2012 period and later at the global level, as well as the control of ketamine at the national level in 1999. Over the 2000–2019 period, the annual prevalence of ketamine non-medical use among twelfth-grade high-school students fell drastically, from 2.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf



'Individual NPS hardly ever establish their own significant market. However, evidence from Europe suggests synthetic cannabinoids are a significant problem among marginalized sections of society such as the homeless and prison inmates. NPS use in prisons was reported by 22 countries in Europe, with most of those countries identifying synthetic cannabinoids as the main challenge' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf


'Drug markets are becoming increasingly complex. Plant-based substances such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin have been joined by hundreds of synthetic drugs, many not under international control. There has also been a rapid rise in the non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs. Roughly 500 NPS are found on the national markets of Member States each year. Currently, most of those are stimulants, followed by synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists and a smaller number of opioids. However, while the overall number of NPS has stabilized, the proportions have changed. Opioid NPS accounted for just 2 per cent of the number of NPS identified in 2014 but by 2018 that figure had risen to 9 per cent. Opioid NPS, many of them fentanyl analogues, have proved both potent and harmful, fuelling overdose deaths in North America and to a lesser extent in other regions. In North America, fentanyls are either used as adulterants in heroin and other drugs (including cocaine and methamphetamine) or used to make falsified pharmaceutical opioids. Some evidence suggests NPS stimulants are also being injected in Europe: a study of residues in discarded syringes in six European cities found that many were tainted with stimulant NPS.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'For example, the researchers found that students who had used synthetic cannabinoids were more likely to have also used substances like alcohol, heroin and ecstasy than individuals who used marijuana but not synthetic cannabinoids. In addition, those teens who used synthetic cannabinoids were more likely to report having engaged in injury- or violence-related behavior, including physical fights or riding with a driver who had been drinking.'
https://www.livescience.com/58230-synthetic-cannabinoids-linked-to-more-risk-taking.html


'In April and May 2015, the state of Mississippi experienced an unprecedented outbreak of severe reactions to the drug commonly referred to as “Spice.” After numerous calls to the Poison Control Center, it became clear that health care providers were largely unfamiliar with the category of synthetic cannabinoids. This review article briefly highlights cannabinoid effects, chemical characteristics, and treatment for this often-dangerous category of drugs of abuse.'
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01008-6/fulltext


'Often abused by adolescents and military personnel to elude detection in drug tests due to their lack of structural similarity to delta9-THC, SCBs are falsely marketed as safe marijuana substitutes. Instead, SCBs are a highly structural diverse group of compounds, easily synthesized, which produce very dangerous adverse effects occurring by, as of yet, unknown mechanisms.

Therefore, available evidence indicates that K2/Spice products are clearly not safe marijuana alternatives.'
https://www.cell.com/trends/pharmacological-sciences/fulltext/S0165-6147(16)30185-7


'These are the first known instances of rat poison being found in synthetic cannabinoids—and how the toxin got there is unknown. Douglas Feinstein, a neuroscientist and brodifacoum expert developing new antidotes to this substance at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says the symptoms in these cases indicate high levels of exposure. That makes accidental contamination unlikely, he says, and suggests the poison may have been introduced deliberately. “We don’t know the exact doses these people are getting, but it’s a lot,” says Feinstein, who is hoping to analyze blood samples from those affected.* “It could have been added intentionally to prolong the high.”'
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-spice-of-death-the-science-behind-tainted-synthetic-marijuana/


Legalize natural marijuana in New York, in federal USA and worldwide to prevent vulnerable people getting fooled and hooked onto synthetic marijuana like K2 aka Spice because they don't have healthy natural marijuana as an alternative.

'K2 — the street name for plant matter sprayed with synthetic chemicals, designed to mimic the effects of marijuana’s active ingredient — is currently America's cheapest way to get high. The drug is often sold at corner stores, labeled as potpourri and unfit for human consumption. A bag of K2 sells for $5 to $10, while a joint goes for just $1. But the drug's dangerous side effects have taken a toll on a wide variety of communities across the country, particularly in New York City. US poison control centers received more than 6,000 K2 calls in the first nine months of 2015, around a quarter of those calls came from NYC. VICE News gets a glimpse of the challenges New York City is facing with K2 through the lens of volunteer ambulance corps and harm reduction specialists in its outer boroughs.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArPDJZARUkI


Confusing the vulnerable and making them addicts of cheap, dangerous, legal synthetic marijuana prepared pharmaceutically while keeping natural, healthy, medicinal marijuana out of reach
thus pushing people to homelessness, suicide and crime. The script of psychopaths?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6pmc7Tpx4w



Legalize natural cannabis to avoid synthetic cannabis..

'Results:Review of the literature illustrates the hazards associated with SC [synthetic cannabinoid] use. A range of severe toxicities affecting numerous systems has been identified, such as arrhythmias, myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, psychosis, suicidal ideation, seizures, acute tubular necrosis, and intracranial hemorrhage. Additionally, a recent outbreak of coagulopathies and at least 4 associated deaths due to SCs tainted with brodifacoum have been reported. Discussion:Synthetic cannabinoids may be perceived as a safer alternative to marijuana; however, SCs can be more potent at the cannabinoid receptors and in turn have greater toxicities.'
https://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/30842917


'Users smoke or inhale synthetic pot through vaporizers, and the resulting high roughly mimics the effects of marijuana but with much harsher side effects, including heart attacks, strokes and kidney damage. Synthetic drug users also sometimes become so delusional and violent that restraining them requires multiple people and the use of antipsychotics.'


'Producers of the drug [synthetic cannabis] use a continually rotating list of ingredients. And each time the federal government places a compound on its schedule of illegal substances, the suppliers replace that chemical with a new one. These ever-shifting recipes make it hard for researchers to identify new drug formulations and link them to their side effects.'


'Power, who has published a book on the internet drug trade (Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That’s Changing How the World Gets High), concludes that public health would be best served if the relatively safe substances like cannabis and magic mushrooms were legalised and put under official quality control. If people were allowed to smoke cannabis, there would be no demand for a confusing variety of new and untested cannabinoid products.'
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)00835-X