Lawmakers, activists and reformers jostle over 'spice' and 'bath salts'

Spice is sold at smoke shops, liquor stores and gas stations.
- Photo by Adam Vieyra

William perno and Eliza Cardin know all the horror stories: The West Virginia man who got dressed up in women’s underwear and killed his neighbor’s goat. The Pennsylvania man who broke into a church and stabbed a priest. The National City high-school student who went into cardiac arrest on graduation day.

As co-founders of the grassroots group People Against Spice Sales (PASS), perno and Cardin, both residents of Chula Vista, are on a crusade against two designer drugs that have been linked to overdoses, deaths and violent incidents across the country. The drugs—a marijuana-like cannabinoid commonly known as “spice” and a new synthetic stimulant sold as “bath salts”—are banned in many states, but they’re legal in California, available at smoke shops, liquor stores, delis and gas stations.

But for PASS, the bills don’t go far enough. The current drafts don’t require immediate implementation or a ban on so-called “simple” possession—in other words, possession of small amounts. The drugs would still be available on the internet from different states, Cardin and perno say, and they worry that the police won’t be able to stop people from using the drugs.

“We want to do everything we can to prevent some family from experiencing what other families have already experienced across the country, which is death of their loved ones, suicides, people going crazy on bath salts and attacking ran dom people in the community,” perno says.

But drug-policy-reform groups argue that a ban on simple possession would further strain California’s overcrowded prisons.

“It’s just not a good use of scarce police and corrections and probations resources to be jailing or imprisoning low-level drug offenders,” says Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national nonprofit that successfully lobbied to have SB 420 amended to ban distribution instead of possession. (DPA is currently neutral on the bill.)

Still, these bills are only the first steps in what’s shaping up to be a protracted fight against a new breed of drug. Even as policymakers struggle to crack down on spice and bath salts, doctors anticipate a wave of new synthetic drugs that are easy to produce, difficult to regulate and potentially risky for users.

“We’re seeing an ever-increasing trend of entrepreneurial chemists that are coming up with more and more sophisticated ways to make drugs that interact with our brain,” says Dr. Richard Clark, director of toxicology at UCSD Medical Center. “This is all the tip of the iceberg, because as long as there’s people out there willing to pay for them and try them, they’ll come up with new drugs on a daily basis.”

Usually, lawmakers can simply ban a drug. In this case, it’s more complicated.

The key ingredients in spice are compounds that mimic the effects of THC. They’re available for order online from factories in China. Bath salts usually contain mephedrone, naphthylpyrovalerone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), chemicals that are related to khat, a narcotic plant that’s popular in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Khat is banned in the United States, but some of these chemicals aren’t.

It’s not clear what’s exactly inside packets stamped with names like Happy Daze and Blue Majic. Manufacturers label the products “not for human consumption,” so they don’t have to list ingredients per FDA regulations. They can alter a drug’s chemical structure to get around new laws.

“There’s no control system on this stuff. Nobody monitors this stuff. Nobody knows what’s in it,” Amy Roderick, a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Administration, says about bath salts, which have gained in popularity in the Midwest and South and entered the DEA’s radar early this year. “You have no idea what you’re putting in your body.”

In March, the DEA temporarily banned five chemical compounds used in spice, but manufacturers simply introduced new forms made with slightly different compounds. hernandez’s bill includes the five compounds, but also any “synthetic cannabinoid derivative” to cover new formulas. Meanwhile, Hueso’s bill covers a laundry list of compounds used in bath salts.

The drugs’ chemical makeup often differs from brand to brand. One person who smoked a $20 gram of bath salts told CityBeat that he didn’t feel anything at all, but media reports on the drug reveal nightmarish experiences across the country, and so far this year, the California Poison Control System has received at least 72 calls about people ingesting, snorting, smoking and injecting bath salts, according to Dr. Clark. People sought medical attention in 52 of the cases; one person died. (Poison Control System data about spice wasn’t available to CityBeat by press time.)

Cardin, a full-time student at southwestern College, teamed up with perno, a retired sheriff ’s deputy, when they heard kids were buying spice at a deli next to Hilltop Middle School—where perno’s kid and one of Cardin’s daughters go to school. They reached out to Hueso’s staff, and over the past several months, they’ve been talking to police and rallying parents across the county.

In their off hours, they canvas neighborhood shops, keeping track of which businesses sell the drugs and which don’t. The deli next door to Hilltop has since stopped selling spice. Other shops also took spice off their shelves after receiving a letter signed by Chula Vista’s police chief, David Bejarano, asking businesses to not sell it.

Cardin and perno didn’t find any bath salts on a recent search, but they found spice in nine stores. Sometimes, they warn clerks about the dangers of the drugs, but they prefer to avoid confrontation.

“We can only go in and educate and inform,” Cardin says.

The bills will go to the Senate and Assembly floors, respectively, for votes later this month. PASS hopes to pressure lawmakers into including bans on simple possession, but the Drug Policy Alliance and other groups argue that targeting drug users is a strategy that’s failed in the past.

“It hasn’t stopped people from seeking to use drugs of abuse. It hasn’t limited the availability of drugs of abuse,” says Stephen Munkelt, co-chair of the legislative committee for California attorneys for Criminal Justice, an advocacy group. “All it has done is load up our prisons and jails with people who now have criminal records and reduced abilities to have jobs and participate in the community.”

Perno and Cardin counter that they support alternatives to incarceration like drug courts, diversion and drug counseling.

“We’re not looking to put people in jail,” Cardin says.

Whatever happens, synthetic drug manufacturers seem prepared to adapt. In a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek, a spice maker in Missouri described how he’s devising products to meet different state requirements. He’s also experimenting with new chemical compounds.

Clark, the UCSD toxicologist, sees a frightening future for designer drugs—more perplexing formulas, more curious users, more bad reactions.

“They’re going to make it. And when they first make it, it’s legal. And they’re going to sell it for a period of time. And people are going to try it,” he says. “So, trying to teach people about it is the best thing to do.”

Write to peterh@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.