A story in DMN highlights another problem with our State’s idiotic marijuana laws. By making a very safe product illegal, marijuana, we have led people to use more dangerous drugs, like K2 or synthetic weed. The end result… from DMN- 29 people treated at Dallas hospitals for possible synthetic marijuana overdoses | Dallas Morning News.
Dr. Jim d’Etienne, who supervises the emergency department at Baylor, said most patients came to the hospital by ambulance with signs of severe intoxication and psychosis.
He said multiple patients came in with the same symptoms, including extremely agitated behavior. According to d’Etienne, some had to be sedated.
Most of those treated were later released, he said.
Dallas police only would say detectives in the narcotics division had interviewed two patients.
That’s great that we have narcotics officers at the hospital to supervise a problem law enforcement created. Narcotics officers arrest pot users, sellers, and growers. So now we have dangerous substitute goods that enter the market, like K2. Since K2 is much more dangerous than weed, the users end up in the hospital, and narcotics officers have to spend their time trying to stop this crisis that they created.
It’s like a negative feedback loop of government inanity. Stupid laws beget wasted law enforcement resources and worse public health outcomes. No one would smoke K2 if pot was legal. Our genius political rules have chosen to have these K2 overdoses by making possession of one joint punishable by up to 6 months in jail.
Of course all this is job security for law enforcement bureaucrats, now that we have a government created K2 crisis, we can justify hiring more cops, prosecutors, probation officers, and jailers to address that issue. It’s a win/win for the police state and big government. Which is another reason why you can not believe in limited government and cannabis prohibition, they are mutually exclusive positions. I’m looking at you Texas GOP.