Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Houston are seeing an increasing amount of a type of high-potency marijuana known as “shatter.” Some forms of shatter have as much as 90 percent THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. That is about five times the potency of unrefined smoked marijuana. It is more powerful than standard hash oil. Shatter is a thin, hard layer that is similar to glass. It can shatter if dropped.
The drug, also called wax or 710, is a concentrated form of marijuana oil. “If you’re looking at something that has three, five, seven, or nine percent THC content, that’s a drastic difference to somebody that is consuming something with 80 or 90 percent THC content,” said Wendell Campbell, DEA special agent.
Houston DEA agents report an increase in marijuana concentrate seizures in the past year, the article notes. The concentrates are often hidden in beauty product containers.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, in its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment, said that marijuana concentrates are growing in popularity and that the drug’s ease of use through portable vaporizers presented new challenges to law enforcement. “Marijuana concentrates are extracted from leafy marijuana in many ways, but the most frequently used, and potentially most dangerous, method is butane extraction,” the DEA stated. “The butane extraction method uses highly flammable butane gas and has resulted in numerous explosions and injuries, particularly on the West Coast, where production is most common.”
In December, The Washington Post reported shatter is appearing on the East Coast. The product is legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, and is sold in medical marijuana dispensaries in other states, the newspaper notes. It is faster-acting and much more easily hidden than marijuana.
Synthetic Marijuana, also known as "K-2" or "Spice" is a mixture of common herbs sprayed with synthetic chemicals that mirror the high of Marijuana. The synthetic product is sold as incense in head shops, tobacco stores and convenient stores. So far, twelve states have banned the sale of Synthetic Marijuana - (Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oregon, Illinois, Michigan, and Kentucky). The American Association of Poison Control Centers reported that within the past year there have been over 500 cases of negative reactions to the still legal yet dangerous drug. On the national level the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently designated certain chemicals that are present within Synthetic Marijuana to the same category that heroin and LSD are part of and further emphasizes the need to be able to test blood and urine for Synthetic Marijuana use. On the local level- The Herald Online reported that Fort Mill,...