Remember the synthetic marijuana-like product Spice? Other than Four Loko, Spice was probably the drug story of the year, attracting the attention of media outlets, parents, and kids alike. In time it attracted the attention of the federal government as well, and the DEA in November said that it would take emergency measures to schedule the drug, or in other words to classify it as they do other drugs, and get it removed from the market. According to the DEA's release, the final rule on the psychoactive compounds JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol would be published on December 24th.
[caption id="attachment_866" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The popular brand "K2""]
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This was very disappointing to Spice smokers. You might be surprised to learn that as of now the disappointment is unwarranted - though the DEA made its announcement on November 24th, the products remain on the market.
Huh? As it turns out, the DEA was not clear in its original release as to the timeframe of the temporary ban. Apparently, 30 days is the minimum amount of time required to announce a change in the rules. But it doesn't mean that's the amount of time it will take - the DEA can take all the time it needs and has issued another release to clarify that. So, Spice has been pulled from a lot of shelves (or reformulated), and we are told a home drug test is in the works for it, but it's still, technically, temporarily, legal.
DEA Spokeswoman Barbara Carreno, interviewed by the Hartford Advocate, explained the process, explaining “We still have to write new regulations and publish them and that’s taken longer than expected.” Furthermore:
While the law stipulates that the DEA must announced its proposed ban thirty days prior to enacting it, there’s nothing that prohibits them from taking longer, Carreno says. Until the rules are actually published in the Federal Register, the nation’s official rule book, the ban will not go into effect.
She said she wouldn’t offer an estimate as to when final rules may be published, saying the agency had “learned our lesson” with regard to predictions or estimated time frames. She said vendors of K2 and Spice should continue checking the register to stay on the right side of the law.
Business owners will have to be vigilant, although it seems likely that when Spice and K2 are actually off the market, the media attention to the issue will resume, at least briefly.
Another reason why the DEA is having trouble getting Spice products off the market is a lawsuit that has been filed in Minnesota by a few business owners. They argue that banning Spice will hurt their bottom lines, and it surely will, as one business owner said Spice accounted for a million dollars in sales last year (see The Salt Lake Tribune for more info). The lawsuit was dismissed just days ago by Judge Patrick Schiltz but the business owners are filing a repeal.
Apparently the DEA expects to issue a final ruling on the ban next month. A seemingly separate group, the Retail Compliance Association, has also made a legal challenge to the ban, based on its impact on small businesses and certain federal acts better explained by David Kroll here. According to the press release by the Retail Compliance Association
One economic analyst stated that the industry may represent more than 1 billion in economic impact, if true, this will preclude the ban from ever taking effect as the emergency order is governed by Executive Order 12991 which states that emergency bans cannot be implemented in the cases where a 100 million dollar or greater economic impact will be imposed.
It would be interesting to learn more about those numbers and see how the case is argued. The DEA says it has removed language in its Notice of Intent that cited the acts in question.
The (threatened) Spice ban raises a lot of interesting issues. It does seem to warrant a ban - it's basically unregulated, unknown chemicals sprayed on plant material, and it has been causing bad reactions among some people. Marijuana legalization advocates seem to like Spice because it makes marijuana look good in comparison. How the DEA will handle synthetic cannabinoids in general (as there are way more than the 5 the DEA specified in their Notice of Intent) will be intriguing as well.
So the Spice saga goes on...we'll let you know when the DEA publishes its rules in February, if in fact they publish the rules at all.
Picture from "The Pitch"