Board bans chemicals used to create synthetic marijuana

CARSON CITY -- Six more chemicals used to create synthetic marijuana have been outlawed by the Nevada Board of Pharmacy, but manufacturers are expected to substitute other chemical compounds that will create a similar high for users.

"We'll have to keep doing it," said Larry Pinson, executive director of the Pharmacy Board, on Wednesday. "The manufacturers will keep repacking it, but maybe we can make it so difficult that there won't be any profit."

Pharmacy Board members unanimously approved an emergency regulation Tuesday that outlawed six of the ingredients used to make "Spice," synthetic marijuana usually sold in head shops. Until that vote, the sale of Spice was legal.

Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the emergency regulation Wednesday.

Once the emergency regulation, good for 120 days, becomes permanent, then possession or sale of the drug will become a felony, punishable by up a year or more in jail, and a $5,000 fine. Pinson expects the permanent regulation will be approved well before the deadline.

The board's action was similar to what it did in January in outlawing some of the ingredients in "bath salts," or methamphetaminelike substances used to get high. Actual bath salts, or lotion or soaps poured into bath tubs, remain legal, but use of the synthetic drugs now is illegal.

Some of the ingredients in synthetic marijuana also were banned last year.

Pinson said law enforcement officials are concerned that manufacturers will keep altering the ingredient of synthetic drugs and, as a result, the Pharmacy Board might have to adopt future regulations.

"We can't regulate everything in the world," Pinson said.

"People are buying the stuff to get high. They also use glue and gas. We just have to keep up with them (manufacturers) and force the head shops to take it off the shelves. If they have to throw away a lot of the product, then maybe they won't sell it anymore."

He said that regulation is difficult because some substances being sold as a drug originated in medical research clinics as part of experiments to help relieve the symptoms of Alzheimer's and other illnesses.

If they outlaw everything, then they could deter necessary medical research, he said.

Spice was developed more than 15 years ago in an academic lab in South Carolina as part of a pharmaceutical research project.

Manufacturers spray the chemicals on grass or other substances, and users smoke it to get high.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.