BILLY THE EXTERMINATOR & WIFE Arrested for Synthetic Weed

Billy Bretherton from A&E’s reality show “Billy the Exterminator” has been arrested for synthetic marijuana possession along with his wife Mary

Law enforcement tells, police were dispatched to the Courtyard Marriott in Benton, Louisiana on April 28th in reference to a 911 hang-up call. When cops arrived at the Brethertons‘ hotel room, we’re told they discovered what they suspected was synthetic marijuana and some drug-smoking device.

FYI — synthetic marijuana refers to a wide-range of drugs that mimic the effects of marijuana … some are legal, some aren’t.

Police confiscated the substance for testing — and last week, they say it came back positive as synthetic marijuana. Arrest warrants were subsequently issued for Billy and Mary for drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Billy and Mary were contacted by police about the warrants and the two turned themselves in June 1st. They bonded out the same day.

So far, no court date’s been set. Calls to the Brethertons were not returned.

Efforts to ban synthetic marijuana

Hudson tried synthetic marijuana for the first time last October. The 17-year-old fromLake Orion and her friends bought it from a party store, mixed it with marijuana and smoked it.

• Mary Kait Hudson, 17, along with father Jeff Hudson talk about her addiction to synthetic marijuana.

“It worked pretty instant,” she recalled.

She began hallucinating and felt like she was in the shower. Then she blacked out. The next thing she remembers is waking up in her bed the next morning.

Hudson got hooked on the drug — often called K2, Spice or fake weed — and ended up in rehab. But the substance has been even more devastating for other users. Police believe two young men smoked it before they attacked a Farmington Hills family with baseball bats in April. A West Bloomfield teen killed by his grandmother tested positive for the substance, the grandmother’s attorney said. And police blame it for the overdose death of a young man in Bloomfield Townshiplast weekend.

Now, Michigan lawmakers, police, judges, health professionals and parents say they’re on a mission to get the products banned.

It’s not the first time the state or federal government has tried to outlaw synthetic marijuana. In the last two years, both have banned certain chemicals that were being used to make the products.

Manufacturers quickly skirted the laws and developed new formulas. Today, it’s easy to find across much of the nation.

Last year, for the first time, high school seniors were asked in the annual Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by the University of Michigan, whether they had used the substance. About one in nine seniors said they had.

“We know it’s the tip of the iceberg, that abuse is much more common and hospitalization more common than you can tell by looking at our numbers,” said Dr. Susan Smolinske, managing director for the DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan Regional Poison Center.

LOL no laughing matter

Synthetic marijuana is usually sold in packets or clear containers with names like Legal Devil, the Presidential, Demon, LOL, Tsunami and Scooby Snax. It comes in flavors like grape, blueberry, mango, strawberry, apple and watermelon.

The products are made up of plant material, not marijuana, and sprayed with chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. It doesn’t show up in many drug tests.

National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said calling the product synthetic marijuana is a mistake because that term doesn’t convey the dangerousness of the drug.

Some variations can be legally purchased online, at gas stations, tobacco stores and various other outlets — usually for $5 to $50. It’s often marketed as incense or potpourri with a label that warns “not for human consumption.”

“That’s only with a wink and a nod because everyone realizes … that they’re buying it to be used for people to get high,” said special agent Rich Isaacson, spokesman for the Detroit division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Chemicals used in the products can be purchased from specialty companies in Europe, China and possibly the Cayman Islands, Isaacson said. Synthetic marijuana is manufactured in those areas as well as the U.S., according to the DEA.

The Free Press visited several stores in Detroit and found the product for sale in plain view but often behind glass.

Store owners or managers who sell it either didn’t return calls from the Free Press, said they’ve pulled the products from store shelves in the best interest of the community or said what they’ve sold isn’t illegal and isn’t meant to be smoked.

Spice in the spotlight

In recent weeks, synthetic marijuana has been thrust into the spotlight in Michigan in a series of incidents involving teens and young adults said to be using it.

In Farmington Hills, police say Tucker Cipriano, 19, and Mitchell Young, 20, smoked Spice before they attacked Cipriano’s family with baseball bats on April 16, killing his father and critically injuring his mother and brother.

In West Bloomfield, Jonathan Hoffman, 17, tested positive for Spice on May 18, the day police say his grandmother shot him to death, according to Jerome Sabbota, the grandmother’s attorney. Sabbota said Sandra Layne, 74, shot her grandson out of fear after he threatened her.

In Troy, a mother rushed to Raintree Park on May 17 after someone called to say her 15-year-old daughter, who had smoked Spice, was “freaking out,” according to police.

In Rochester Hills, police said a 27-year-old man tried to steal synthetic marijuana from a gas station May 20 and scuffled with the clerk.

And in Bloomfield Township, 18-year-old Oliver Satchel Smith was using synthetic marijuana before he died next to a private lake on May 26, police said. Toxicology results are pending.

“It’s very much on people’s minds,” said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, who with other county officials announced a campaign Friday to put decals in windows of businesses that pledge not to sell synthetic drugs.

Changes in behavior

Several metro Detroit parents can attest to the dangers of synthetic marijuana, describing how their children quickly went from happy and outgoing to troubled — experiencing mood swings, stealing from them and being withdrawn.

Mary Kait Hudson’s father, Jeff Hudson, said he knew something was wrong and questioned his daughter, but she denied drug use.

“She was putting a wedge between herself and family,” he said.

Mary Kait, who was smoking the substance up to five times a day, spent the night in the hospital after she was found passed out in a snow bank in February. She sought treatment and has been clean since Feb 13, but said she believes the use of synthetic marijuana has taken a toll on her body.

“My memory sucks,” she said. “Do I have holes in my brain?”

Lisa Kelly, 54, of Waterford said she couldn’t understand the changes in her son’s behavior and had him tested for drugs, but the results were clean.

Last summer, four years after she said the addiction started, she discovered what her son was using when he smoked what he told her was “flavored tobacco” at a cookout with family and friends.

Kelly said she wanted to know what it was, so she took a few hits.

“Within minutes … I was sick, I was dizzy, nauseated. My equilibrium was off,” she said. “My head, I couldn’t get it straight.”

Kelly said she has watched her son, now 20, lose control — fighting with his brother, being rushed to the hospital about four times and spending his money and hers to feed the addiction.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said.

About a week ago, Kelly’s son — who asked not to be named — said he was ready to get help.

“He’s becoming more loving and back to himself,” she said.

More seek treatment

Dr. Alexander Sackeyfio, a psychiatrist in Farmington Hills, handles many emergency cases in which teens are rushed to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Many of them become psychotic, see things and feel out of control after smoking synthetic marijuana.

“It is actually very, very dangerous,” he said. “If you have any propensity toward any psychotic illness … that will bring it out.”

The number of people seeking treatment at Michigan’s hospitals has risen dramatically in two years, according to reported cases.

In 2010, 16 people were treated in hospitals after using synthetic marijuana, statistics from the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Regional Poison Center show. That number jumped to 201 in 2011 and 185 through May of this year.

Smolinske of the poison center noted the numbers are likely much higher because hospitals aren’t required to report cases.

Strengthening laws

Some rules are already in place banning synthetic marijuana, but efforts are under way to strengthen those laws.

Michigan passed legislation in 2010 prohibiting seven substances frequently used to make synthetic marijuana. The DEA made five chemicals illegal last year.

That hasn’t stopped the legal sale of synthetic marijuana because manufacturers change the chemicals and often advertise on packaging that the product is a “100% legal blend” or does not contain “prohibited ingredients as per state law or DEA regulations.”

“Because it is legal, children and young adults believe it can’t be that dangerous, or we as a society would protect them from it,” said District Court Judge Kirsten Nielsen Hartig of Troy, who educates people on the products.

A bill introduced in both the state House and Senate would allow the state to temporarily ban a substance if the director of the Michigan Department of Community Health, working with the Michigan Board of Pharmacy, deems it an imminent danger to people’s health, said sponsor Sen. Rick Jones.

Another bill that passed in the state Senate with bipartisan support Thursday would make synthetic cannabinoids used in the products — as well as those that could be manufactured or sold down the road — illegal.

“We’re mostly trying to get at the manufacturers and those who sell it,” said Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, who introduced the bill. “If we get rid of that, then people can’t get their hands on it.”

Kerlikowske has encouraged states to take action, in part because they have regulatory power and can move quicker than the federal government. The U.S. Senate late last month passed legislation banning synthetic marijuana, but it still must be reconciled with a version passed in the House.

“This is without question a huge problem,” said the DEA’s Isaacson. “It’s finally coming to the forefront, but it’s something we’ve been talking about in our drug education presentations for a year and a half here in the Detroit area.”

Alleged user, sellers of man-made pot charged in crash

A Pottstown man who police said was “flying” on K2, or synthetic pot, and two others who supplied it from behind the counter of a local convenience store were charged Monday in connection with a May 21 car crash that killed two people.

In the first charges to be lodged in Montgomery County under the state’s recent ban on synthetic drugs, police announced the filing of two counts of vehicular homicide against Roger Malloy, 27, of the 300 block of N. York Street.

Malloy told police he had just smoked K2 on May 21 when the Lincoln Continental he was driving went out of control on rain-slick pavement, killing Pottstown residents James Crawford, 28, and Rachel Witt, 15, who were in the car.

A third passenger, Kendall Harper, 16, was severely injured in the crash on State Street in the northwestern Montgomery County borough, police said.

Police also announced the arrest of Rafie Ali, 34, of the 400 block of E. High Street, and Mohamed Himed, 25, of the Bronx, N.Y.

Ali, authorities allege, was proprietor of the store where Malloy purchased the K2. Himed was a clerk.

The pair were charged with corrupt organizations, delivering a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

According to court papers, the two peddled the illegal substance for $5 a bag or vial from behind the counter of the Achi store, a convenience shop at 315 E. High Street.

The pair were not charged with vehicular homicide because the anti-synthetic drug legislation passed Aug. 22, 2011, has no provision for that.

“We can’t file homicide charges against them, but make no mistake, they do have blood on their hands,” said District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman during a briefing in Norristown.

The two men were arraigned late Monday before District Judge Edward C. Kropp Sr., who ordered each held on $1 million bail in the Montgomery County prison. Malloy was awaiting arraignment before Kropp late Monday.

Ferman portrayed the case as a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when young people use synthetic marijuana.

Also known as “spice,” “K2” and fake weed, it is a manmade chemical compound that can be sprayed on a natural herb. When smoked, it delivers a high similar to THC, the prime ingredient in marijuana.

“K2 might look like something from a candy store, but it can kill,” Ferman said. She said young people use it because they believe it is cheap, relative to marijuana, and because they think “it’s not dangerous.”

“It can get you into as much trouble as other illegal drugs,” she warned.

On June 15, 2011, a 16-year-old Upper Moreland boy who had just smoked K2 jumped off the third story of a parking garage in Abington Township and was severely injured.

Police said the boy was sitting in a car with three friends about 8 p.m. when “he began to act oddly and may have been hallucinating.”

“He suddenly climbed out of the car. . .and ran full speed and leaped off of the deck,” detectives said. No charges were filed in connection with the incident because the synthetic drug ban had yet to become law.

In the Pottstown case, the K2 “caused [Malloy’s] heart to beat faster, blurred his vision, and caused a sense of panic,” according to court papers.

The car skidded 443 feet before coming to rest in an alley. Malloy pulled his friends from the back seat of the car and then vanished, police said. Malloy was apprehended May 22 while trying to escape authorities on a bicycle.

 

Broward may outlaw bath salts, fake pot, aggressive panhandling

Broward County may join the legal crusades against trendy synthetic drugs and aggressive panhandlers.

At their last meeting before a two-month summer recess, Broward commissioners Tuesday asked their attorney to draft laws on both hot issues, to be voted on later this year.

The laws, if passed, would apply countywide except in cities that have conflicting rules on the books, the county attorney’s office said.

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Since the Miami “zombie” attack in which Rudy Eugene attacked a homeless man, eating part of his face, the use of bath salts as a mind-altering drug has drawn wide public attention. Police are looking into whether Eugene, whom they shot and killed, was under the influence of bath salts before the attack.

Disturbing accounts of people smoking herbal incense as a synthetic version of marijuana also are prompting action to outlaw sales of that substance.

Broward commissioners appeared less enthusiastic, though, over a proposal to outlaw aggressive panhandling, suggested by Commissioner Chip LaMarca. The city of Fort Lauderdale passed an anti-begging law recently, and LaMarca said he’d like to see Broward follow suit.

Visitors shouldn’t be verbally accosted by panhandlers, he said.

But his colleagues voiced numerous concerns, including Mayor John Rodstrom’s repeated worries that the county’s jails would fill to overflowing if the law is passed.

Sheriff Al Lamberti said last week that the jails are at 92 percent capacity, and he’d have to reopen the county stockade if the population passes its maximum.

Commissioner Sue Gunzburger said she’s never had a problem once she says no to people selling items from the street corners and medians.

“I realize it’s a problem for some,” she said, “but we also have to protect their First Amendment rights.”

Commissioners also on Tuesday put some bite into several new laws passed recently, enacting fines of $250 per violation for the first offense, and $500 for subsequent violations.

Here are the laws the fines apply to: a new tow truck ordinance, which attempts to infuse more customer friendliness into operations; a law banning the sale of smoking pipes and devices to minors; a law making it illegal for junk dealers and scrap metal processors to pay cash or to buy restricted items; and a law requiring gas stations to post a phone number or provide an intercom system so disabled drivers can call inside for help pumping gas.

Cities getting tougher on synthetic, dangerous pot substitutes

Sold as herbal incense in candy-like packaging, synthetic marijuana is dangerous enough to outlaw. So say city and county officials around South Florida.

Sweetwater has banned the stuff and Sunrise officials are expected to give final approval to a ban in June. Others may be close behind, including Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Coral Springs, Deerfield Beach, Hallandale Beach, Pembroke Pines, Pompano Beach and Miami Gardens.

 

Nashua police convince store owners to stop carrying bath salts

NASHUA – Bath salts, K2, spice. All of it should be a lot harder to find in Nashua after police convinced store owners in the city to stop selling the dangerous synthetic drugs.

Nashua police Lt. David Bailey visited 55 independently owned convenience stores, gas stations and smoke shops recently and found 11 were selling the amphetamine-like chemical that has been blamed for dozens of bizarre and disturbing attacks across the country.

All of the stores agreed to stop selling the synthetic drugs, which are sold as bath salts, herbal incense, glass cleaner and more, after Bailey told them about their effects. He began visiting the stores after a spike in the number of people overdosing on it in the city, he said.

“We got information about increased problems about bath salts and synthetic marijuana,” Bailey said. “We took a proactive approach in what we were seeing as a pretty dramatic spike.”

The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed legislation last month that added 26 substances to the Controlled Drug Substance Act. That should make it more difficult to produce legal versions of the drugs, Bailey said.

A horrifying attack against a homeless man in Miami in May first brought the drugs into the spotlight. Police shot and killed 31-year-old Rudy Eugene after finding him biting off a homeless man’s face on the side of a Florida freeway.

Although bath salts were widely blamed for the “zombie” attack, officials recently determined Eugene was not on the drug when he was killed.

Nevertheless, it grabbed headlines. Since then, dozens of other bizarre incidents, some including cannibalism, have been blamed on the drugs.

Nothing quite that dramatic has happened in Greater Nashua, but there has been an increase of calls for people overdosing on the drug as well as police and EMTs having to deal with combative, violent and unpredictable people high on the drug.

Chris Stawasz, AMR operations manager, said he’s talked with his EMTs about the signs someone exhibits when they are on the drug, what dangers they present and how they should be treated.

“It’s very high at the top of our list right now for potential problems,” he said. “People are extremely violent, unpredictable. It’s a very high level of physical danger in these calls.”

Stawasz said a community-wide meeting between AMR, police, fire and hospital officials will be held soon to talk about how to address the increase in bath salt overdoses.

“Fortunately, we haven’t experienced the really bizarre incidents you read about,” he said. “It’s definitely here. It’s in Nashua. It’s a scary drug.”

Reports of people overdosing on the drug have increased across the state this year, spiking in April, according to data from the Northern New England Poison Control Center.

There were close to 15 calls to the center in April and nearly 10 in May, the latest month for which data was available. The increase in calls began in March 2011 after virtually no reports about the drug from June 2010 until then, according to the NNEPCC data.

The center, which covers New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, took 30 calls about bath salts overdoses in Maine in May 2011, according to the report.

Whats the Deal With FAKE POT?

It sounds relatively harmless. Synthetic marijuana. Like pot for people who don’t want to get arrested.

For a while, that’s kind of how it worked. Hiding under the guise of “natural” herbal ingredients, with labels like “organic” and “herbal incense” and “fake weed,” the substance was able to spread from its European beginnings to a worldwide product, dispensed right out in the open.

Gas stations sold it. Smoke shops. Party stores. You could use it and still pass a drug test.

The problem is, there’s nothing fake about what fake weed does to some of its users.

And now that we know it, we must stop it.

Reports of psychotic behavior, violence and hallucinations should make every potential buyer beware. Side effects linked to seizures and anxiety attacks should, too.

And the fact that synthetic compounds are being used to make this stuff, changed and switched as if part of a mad scientist chemistry lab, should leave any potential customer running for the hills.

But the problem isn’t just the buyers.

It’s the sellers.

A judge on a mission

Now, I could understand this with your standard issue drug dealers. They are hard to identify, they slip into the shadows, they work streets corners and back rooms.

But the culprits in the synthetic marijuana story are often convenience stores, gas stations, smoke shops — easily found places of business that presumably need a license to operate and, most glaringly, someone to order the inventory.

So what’s the problem? If the same person who checks off the cigarette, potato chip and Pepsi orders is the person unpacking the Spice, K2 or other versions of this newest poison, why can’t they be identified? I doubt gas stations have a separate Shady Drug Purchasing Officer.

When a Troy district court judge, Kirsten Nielsen Hartig, filled up with gas recently, she decided to see how easy buying the dangerous substance could be.

“I asked for it, and the clerk really didn’t want to talk about it,” she said. “He reached down, grabbed a box and it had 15 different kinds to choose from. …

“He said, ‘I don’t even know what it is. Just take your pick and I’ll ring it up.’

When he did, Hartig said, it was rung up under “tobacco.”

That’s one very dangerous smoke.

Tell your kids the truth

States like Michigan are taking rapid action to prohibit the sale of this stuff, which has been linked to deaths all over the country, frequently young people who, under its influence, grow inexplicably violent or express urges to do damage.

A Washington state teenager stabbed a young woman to death. A Minnesota man shot himself in the head. Every story you read scares you more and more. And the fact that some claim it is now the third-most popular substance among high school-age kids should really make us shiver.

So should this: While many of these synthetic marijuana substances were made illegal in the last two years, there’s a huge loophole.

“It’s a very complex compound,” Hartig said. “All the manufacturers have to do is change just one of the compounds … or the amount of that compound … to circumvent the law and make it legal again.

“So basically the drug dealers, the drug pushers, are one step ahead of the law.”

When I asked why the manufacturers couldn’t be pursued, Hartig said on 15 different packets she examined, none had a name of a maker on it. “We think that it’s coming from India and China mostly,” she said, “but we have no idea what’s in it.”

When I asked the obvious question — “who is ordering this stuff?” — she replied, “That’s a good question.”

It needs to be answered. And it needs to be stopped.

Michigan is doing a good thing by encouraging businesses to display signs that say they are not carrying any of these products, and urging customers to stay away from establishments that do.

Meanwhile, the authorities should crack down on the latter. If we would chase down a drug dealer in a schoolyard, why wouldn’t we pursue a store that keeps a clearly dangerous product under the counter, and rings it up falsely under tobacco?

It sounds relatively harmless. Synthetic marijuana. But do a little research. Then sit your kids down and tell them the truth.

It isn’t.

synthetic drug ban

HOLLYWOOD—FLORIDA

Cities are joining a legal crusade to ban bath salts and synthetic marijuana.

City commissioners are poised to ban synthetic marijuana and “bath salts” at their Tuesday meeting, making Hollywood the latest Broward city to jump on the synthetic-drug-ban bandwagon.

Bath salts, touted as fake cocaine, and synthetic marijuana, sold as herbal incense, have gained popularity for recreational drug use.

As a result, poison control centers and emergency rooms nationwide have seen an uptick in calls and treatment because of the drugs’ detrimental effects.

Topping the list of adverse reactions are aggression, extreme paranoia, hostility and hallucinations.

Several Broward cities have rushed to ban the troublesome substances.

“There’s evidence that the accessibility to these products, over the counter at convenience stores and gas stations and so forth, is something that needs to be stopped,” said Commissioner Dick Blattner, who instigated the city ban. “And since other cities are passing similar legislation, we end up being an island in the sea, so to speak, if we don’t follow suit.”

Hollywood is poised to enact its ban as an emergency ordinance, requiring a one-time 2/3 vote of the commission. Violators will face a $500 fine and/or 60 days in jail.

On June 12, Sunrise was the first Broward city — the second in the state after Sweetwater — to ban synthetic marijuana. Deerfield Beach and Lauderhill quickly followed suit.

Also with synthetic pot bans in the works are Coral Springs, Davie,Fort Lauderdale, Lighthouse Point, Hallandale Beach, Pembroke Pines, Pompano Beach and Tamarac.

Lauderhill’s ban last week on bath salts made it the first Broward city to do so. Sunrise is on its way to doing the same.

Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Margate and North Lauderdale are working toward bans of both substances.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has banned the sale of the chemicals used to make both drugs. Florida is among several states that have done likewise.

In 2011, the state Legislature, banned the chemical compounds that were being marketed as “bath salts.” And this past spring, lawmakers banned 92 additional chemical compounds that state law enforcement had identified as frequently appearing in drugs being marketed as synthetic marijuana.

But manufacturers have managed to sidestep the federal and statewide bans. Almost as soon as a new law gets on the books, law enforcement officials say, chemists alter the chemical composition of the banned substance enough that it can still be legally sold.

Poison control centers nationwide dealt with 2,906 calls in 2010 related to synthetic marijuana exposure; 6,959 calls in 2011; and 1,901 calls in the first three months of 2012.

Exposure to bath salts resulted in 304 calls in 2010; 6,138 calls in 2011; and 1,007 calls in the first four months of 2012.