Last week, Illinois public health officials warned of the dangers of synthetic marijuana due to a spike in cases of severe bleeding. A week ago, 56 cases were reported in Illinois – as of Friday last week, those numbers jumped to 89 reported cases. Vicki Rose, Director of Outpatient and Support at Bridgeway in Galesburg says it’s a very serious situation. “We have known about synthetic marijuana for several years now,” Rose said. “It escalated a few years ago – especially in our treatment program. But more recently, with these issues with rat poison, or something similar to rat poison mixed into the drugs, we are also concerned with the safety of that substance.” Reported cases show some testing positive for an anticoagulant often times used in rat poison. The substance is often referred to as Spice, K2 or fake weed. Rose says that in some cases – the substances are legal because the manufacturers of the substance are “ahead of the legislation.” Only certain substances are banned, so often times individuals will purchase these substances because they think they are legal.
