The recent deaths of several men caused by the use of cannabis or synthetic marijuana are focusing their attention on this drug whose demand has not stopped growing. Is synthetic cannabis less dangerous than natural marijuana? According to an expert from the Australian National University in Canberra, David Caldicott, “Synthetic cannabinoids certainly have the potential to be much more dangerous than the natural plant material they are supposed to mimic.
These laboratory compounds , which were designed in their day to study the neurobiology of cannabis in animals, were not intended for human consumption but since they are quite simple to synthesize it is not surprising that their production and consumption have skyrocketed between the youngest population. In fact, a proficient chemistry student could “cook” them in their university lab. This lack of complexity in the process has led to the generation of an entire illegal industry, without controls, of artisans producing synthetic cannabis.
The expert in psychopharmacology from the University of Sydney (Australia), Richard Kevin, is clear in this regard: “there is a great variety of synthetic cannabinoids with unknown toxicity.” This fortuitous production has generated highly toxic batches of synthetic cannabis , responsible for the more than two dozen deaths from its use and more than 700 hospitalized in northern Russia, last autumn alone.
” When you buy synthetic cannabis you can’t know exactly what you are buying, so you are taking a big risk, ” Kevin clarifies. Although many synthetic cannabinoids appear to be relatively well tolerated, many people have had side effects such as acute kidney injury, panic attacks, seizures, as well as impaired long-term memory.
