Newly popular synthetic cannabinoid responsible for "Zombielike

>The report, by a team of authors, offers a window into the ever-evolving world of synthetic drugs, which are growing increasingly powerful even as the makers of the illicit substances continue to create new chemical compounds to evade detection.

>The drugs are usually described by the generic shorthand “synthetic marijuana,” but Roy Gerona, a clinical chemist at the University of California, San Francisco, who helped write the report, said the term was dangerously misleading.

>“There is this false idea out there that these drugs are safe, because no one overdoses on marijuana,” he said.

>But the drug used in Brooklyn — which went by the street name AK-47 24 Karat Gold — was 85 times as potent as the main agent in plant-grown marijuana, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, according to lab tests.

>In fact, synthetic cannabinoids have a completely different chemical structure from plant-based THC, according to the study — one of the major draws for both makers and consumers of designer drugs.

>These chemical compounds, often created in labs in China based on research conducted at western universities and pharmaceutical companies, are not regulated when they appear on the market and are hard to detect.

>“And if you are someone who is regularly drug tested, it will not show up,” adding to the drugs’ appeal, Mr. Gerona said.

>He traced the history of synthetic drugs back to Clemson University and a researcher, John W. Huffman, who was looking for ways to create a drug in the lab that could enhance the medicinal aspects of THC while eliminating the psychotropic effects.
....

>In the course of his work, Mr. Huffman synthesized more than 300 compounds, and his work was published in academic literature.

>Not long after, in about 2008, a synthetic compound began appearing on the street, called K2 in America and Spice in Europe. The main chemical agent, known as JWH-18, was named after the Clemson researcher.

>Soon JWH-18 was showing up around the country and was eventually scheduled as a Class 1 narcotic.

>The drug makers would have to evolve to stay one step ahead of law enforcement.

>In the case of the drug in the Brooklyn outbreak, Pfizer established a patent for a synthetic cannabinoid it called AB-FUBINACA in 2009. The drug seems to have been abandoned by the company and was never tested on humans.

>But the patent is public, and Mr. Gerona said that drug labs in China and other foreign nations scour patents for information that can be useful in creating the next class of drugs.

>These drugs move straight from the lab to the street, so the first trials of their effects are conducted on buyers.

>AMB-FUBINACA was 50 times as powerful than that first generation of designer drugs like K2, according to the study.
...

>As the drugs become more potent, the way they are mixed by middlemen becomes more crucial — with a slight miscalculation having possibly devastating effects.

>In Brooklyn, Mr. Gerona said, it seemed someone had gotten the dosing wrong.

>The result: users falling into a trancelike state, groaning and moaning, their eyes lifeless and their movements slow and seemingly mechanical.

>For the first time, the researchers break down how much money can be made from a product like AMB-FUBINACA.

>The way the market works is simple. Overseas labs create a new compound and often use hidden websites — also referred to as the dark web — to market and sell the product.

>Online, according to the researchers, AMB-FUBINACA could be found in powder form, selling for $1.95 to $3.80 a gram, or $1,950 to $3,800 a kilogram. It is then mixed in with cheap herbal products, allowing users to smoke the drug.

>A sample of the drug recovered in Brooklyn contained 16 milligrams of AMB-FUBINACA per gram of smokable mixture.

>So 1 kilogram of AMB-FUBINACA could be portioned out over 15,625 doses, with a typical street price of $35. That means the dealer stands to make close to $500,000.
...

>As soon as the drug shows up on the radar of authorities, the makers move on to the next compound.

>“There is this cat and mouse chase, with clandestine labs synthesizing new drug, waiting until it becomes scheduled and then moving to a new compound,” Mr. Gerona said, referring to how drugs are made illegal.

>And if the dangers of synthetic cannabinoids have researchers concerned, the risks of designer opioids are perhaps even greater.

>Just last month, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert for a new designer drug called Pink, which had been responsible for 46 deaths, including 31 in New York and 10 in North Carolina.

>“Pink belongs to a family of deadly synthetic opioids far more potent than morphine,” according to the agency. “It is usually imported to the United States, mainly from illicit labs in China.”

>Mr. Gerona said that while it is not in the interest of dealers to kill their clients, as these synthetic compounds become increasingly potent, the risks will continue to grow.

>“No compound that has been made yet has the potential to kill thousands of people,” he said. “But that is a scenario that is becoming more and more close to reality.”

related:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/nyregion/k2-synthetic-marijuana-overdose-in-brooklyn.html

also, this guy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/how-a-chemist-unwittingly-helped-spawn-the-synthetic-drug-epidemic/2015/08/09/94454824-3633-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html?utm_term=.e3384c42a730

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/15/synthetic-cannabis-serious-health-problems-english-prisons

http://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/alumni/penology/theses/Sam%20Baker.pdf

Ex-con-anon reporting in, albeit an American one: yep, this is the cheap go-to in every open dormitory, low-to-medium security.

Seems like there isn't much stopping it, either. Guys tend to earn a minimum of $100 per gram with a $25-$30 investment.

Heart attacks, seizures, psychotic fits, it's all happening on a daily basis.

>>91864
You went to jail for manufacturing a synthetic cannabinoid? Which one?

>>91856

Gee I'm sure glad the state made real cannabis illegal and then let big drug companies make more dangerous synthetic versions!

>>91894
Reading comprehension.

No, fuck you, and none

>>91903
No need to get snippy, ex-con Anon.

This culture can't be saved anymore. Scrap it and start again.

>>91864
>Ex-con-anon reporting in, albeit an American one:
You're a milquetoast baby boomer role playing from a lazy boy.

>yep, this is the cheap go-to in every open dormitory, low-to-medium security.
If you think it's difficult to get real marijuana on any college campus in the country, you're smoking actual crack.

>Seems like there isn't much stopping it, either.
Except for the complete and total lack of a market and preference for natural marijuana.

>Guys tend to earn a minimum of $100 per gram with a $25-$30 investment.
... for $100 you can get an eight of an ounce of real marijuana.
You confirmed for crack smoking.

>>92512
>$100
>an eight of an ounce of real marijuana
Choose one (1)

tbqh weed also has a zombie like effect

>>92512
Well, uh, no. What you're saying is true about colleges, yeah, but...

Locked up 3½ years, actually talking about open dormitory prisons, level 2, where the majority of minor felony offenders wind up, and where the majority of higher security offenders wind up once they calm the fuck down and start trying to get their level dropped.

Dogs can't reliably identity it, it's cheaper than heroin, and you can't get tested for it. Everyone gets tested, eventually. I was only tested twice in the span of my sentence, but if you fuck up you get tested pretty regularly.

The simple figures I wrote before are just gossip, really. Cut them in half and we're talking about tobacco, which was removed from prisons in my state over six years ago, creating a fucking black market for cigarettes

>>92530
yes but this particular compound is 85x more potent as street marijuana and 50x more potent than K2, causing a 'zombie-like' trance state with 'dead eyes and groaning/moaning'.

>>91856
>The result: users falling into a trancelike state, groaning and moaning, their eyes lifeless and their movements slow and seemingly mechanical.

when I read "zombie-like state" I expected people eating each other not braindead stoners

>>92547
Sounds like my kinda night

>>92622
kys

>>92622
It doesn't say if they were ambulatory or not in the official reports but the eyewitness accounts in local TV media were talking about men walking around in the street in a daze moaning like a zombie. Not sure why people would want that kind of high but to each his own.

Now that this specific compound is being talking about in the media I'm sure some ambitious lawmaker will add it to the already banned substances like spice and K2.

>>92547
I sincerely hope someone screws the formula over to add in induced hunger

>>92607
kek but agreed