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The Wrong Strategy on Synthetic Marijuana

When a society’s drug enforcement focuses on the supply of a drug, drug traffickers will (1) alter the concoctions they sell and (2) change the way they sell those concoctions. Sure enough, in response to a ban on synthetic marijuana, dealers are altering their formulas to circumvent existing local laws, and are now selling though the Web. See, ‘Spice’ makers alter recipes to sidestep state laws banning synthetic marijuana @ The Washington Post.

A policy that relies principally on restricting supply, rather than on lessening the addictive desires that drive demand, is sure to fail. Sadly, the new substances may be worse than the old ones :

Just months after Virginia and dozens of other states banned synthetic marijuana, the chemists who make it have found a way to outfox lawmakers.

Spice manufacturers, who spray herbs with compounds that mimic the active ingredient in marijuana, have altered their recipes just enough to skirt the bans and are again openly marketing spice in stores and on the Web. Some users report that the new generation of products could be more potent than the original formulas….

There’s not the slightest chance I would ever use these products, or think it was safe to do so. For that matter, it’s a bad idea to smoke tobacco, let alone someone’s dubious recipe for synthetic marijuana.

The problem is demand:

“We had guys with Pentagon security clearance badges coming in to buy it,” said Alan Amsterdam, co-owner of Capitol Hemp in Adams Morgan. Although he stopped selling spice, he is dubious about efforts to control it.

“The government is one step behind science,” Amsterdam said. “It’s here to stay.”

It’s a proud headline, and a solid source of state and federal funding, to stand against a substance. But when those headlines are forgotten, and those taxpayer-funded grants are long-since spent, there’ll still be users, addicts, injuries, and ill-health.

Until society — private citizens and government, both — shifts its focus to addressing why people want these potions, there will be no meaningful and lasting success in combating their effects.

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