A rise in emergencies for synthetic marijuana has prompted Colorado doctors to warn users of its affects Health Day reported Wednesday.
An estimated 263 people required medical care throughout Colorado from consuming Black Mamba, Crazy Clown, K2, and Spice in the span of a month in 2013 Health Day reported.
"At the end of August, we started noting that patients were coming in with a very severe clinical illness," Dr. Andrew Monte, an assistant professor in emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver told Health Day.
According Health Day, individuals scuffled with medical professionals, and appeared incoherent Health Day reported. The people also had seizures, and had high pulses Health Day reported.
"All these kinds of toxicologic outbreaks are far underreported, for a couple of reasons," Monte told Health Day.
"This is much closer to meth [methamphetamine] than it is to marijuana," Mike Van Dyke, chief of environmental epidemiology and occupational health at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in Denver told Health Day.
The contents the individuals consumed were illegitimate for the body.
"This is not a natural product. This is a chemical," Van Dyke told Health Day. Van Dyke assisted in discovering the spread Health Day reported.
"It's different from batch to batch. The whole chemical can be completely different from batch to batch, and you just don't know what you're getting when you buy these things," Van Dyke told Health Day. "It's very dangerous," Van Dyke told Health Day.
More people went to the hospital for synthetic pot related issues in 2011 than in 2010 according to information from the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Health Day reported.
Incidents went up over 28,500 throughout the country compared to 11,400 Health Day reported.
"This is much closer to meth [methamphetamine] than it is to marijuana," Van Dyke told Health Day.
