According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN, this synthetic marijuana stuff the kids are smoking these days is the worst thing to hit the scene since marijuana itself (gasp!), and parents had better add it to their list of things to be concerned about.
If you're a parent and suspect your child may be using synthetic marijuana, look for these signs: Excessive sweating, agitation, inability to speak, aggression and restlessness. If a teen is showing these symptoms, doctors recommend you seek medical attention for your child immediately. [CNN]
This is all very well-intended I'm sure, but it does occur to me that being high as all hell on dangerous synthetic drugs may not be the only possible explanation for why your teenager is sweaty, pissed-off, and not speaking to you.
For one thing, WebMD says these are symptoms of "Dementia in Head Injury," which is also a serious concern now that the Drug Czar is encouraging kids to do parkour instead of drugs. But before you call an ambulance and start racking up hospital bills, you might want to rule out the possibility that you're dealing with a perfectly normal hormonal adolescent who will cheer up in a year or two if you can manage not to panic and over-parent them until they snap.
In any case, some people are saying some really scary stuff about the risks of synthetic marijuana, and although I've been around it enough to doubt that its destructive potential lives up to the hype, I agree there's a lot we don't know. What we do know is that this stuff was invented for no other reason than to circumvent and cash in on the illegality of marijuana itself. No one would touch this crap – hell, it wouldn't even exist – but for the enormous, moronic war against the thing that people actually want when they're messing around with synthetic pot.
Whatever the story on this stuff turns out to be, there's only one perfect plan for making it go away and it rhymes with megalize larijuana.
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