Florida Wants to Make “Legal Weed” Illegal

Officials want chemically-treated herbs added to don't smoke list

Having already passed the buzz-killing "Bong Bill" that restricts head shops' sales of smoking paraphernalia earlier this year, Florida officials are now taking aim at so-called "legal weed," the herbs that are given a boost by chemicals to help users get high.

Apparently, legal weed is bad for you, and can cause serious side effects including a racing heartbeat, high blood pressure, agitation, panic attacks, severe vomiting and fevers.

Talk about harshing one's mellow.

"We've seen a couple really bad things," Richard Weisman, director of the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami, told the Sun-Sentinel. "If you had asked about this at this time last year, we wouldn't have known what you were talking about."

The Poison Center has seen 50 cases of bad side effects from legal weed, and it's trending upward.

The danger of using the pot substitutes has state officials on the offensive. Florida's drug control director and the Drug Policy Advisory Council plan to ask the legislature to add legal weed to the state's list of illegal drugs.

"They are psychoactive and intoxicating, and they are a risk if you use them and drive," drug control director Bruce Grant told the Sun-Sentinel. "Law enforcement knows this is an issue, but their hands are tied."

Officials said the legal weed has been around for years and is sold as incense. They say the new products are sprayed with chemicals and there's no control over what's really in the products. Eleven other states have banned the drugs, which are sold under names like Spice and K2.

Earlier this year, the state passed a law that made it illegal for smoke shops to make more than 25 percent of revenue from the sale of bongs, pipes and other smoking paraphernalia. The "Bong Bill" has violators facing up to a year in jail as well as fines.

Thirty shops have filed a lawsuit against the law, claiming it's hurting business. And just as they claim they're not responsible for how the bongs get used once they're sold, smoke shop owners say it's up to consumers to decide how to consume legal weed.

"We've heard nothing bad about it whatsoever," Jay Work, from Grateful J's Deadhead Shops in Margate and Boca Raton, told the Sun-Sentinel. "It's an incense. It's labeled as not for human consumption. What people do with it after they leave, I don't know. It's like inhaling [cleaning spray] for your computer. People abuse a lot of things. You can't ban everything."

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