We recently reported on a spate of recent student overdoses involving a deadly from of ecstasy called “Molly”.

Now, Sam Houston State University student Alexa Grigsby, Assistant Viewpoints Editor for the campus newspaper The Houstonian, files this report on incidents involving synthetic marijuana:

Marketed as a “legal high” when it first came out nearly a decade ago, synthetic marijuana—which also goes by K2, Kush, Spice, and dozens of other names—was easily accessible, legal, and didn’t turn up in drug tests. This made it advantageous for younger users.

….John Huffman, the man who developed the drug in an effort to find synthetic alternatives to medical marijuana, says that it was “not meant for human consumption” and “absolutely should not be used as recreational drugs.” Synthetic marijuana has not been tested for safety, and poison center experts have called synthetic drug use a health risk and a public hazard. There are many life-threatening side effects involved in using the drug, some of them being hallucinations, seizures, kidney damage, severe anxiety, suicidal actions, and psychotic episodes.

A report filed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has linked synthetic marijuana to 11,406 drug-related emergency department visits in 2010, which is a whole lot less than the 461,028 people who were admitted for the use of actual marijuana, but still presents a big issue. One-third of the 11,406 cases were people between the ages of 12 and 17, and another 35 percent of the 11,406 cases were people between the ages of 18 and 24.

In Texas alone, there have been two recent cases involving the use of synthetic marijuana. The first incident, which occurred in 2011, involved three teenage boys who had heart attacks after smoking the drug.

The second incident took place in February of this year, the victim being a 16-year-old girl named Emily Bauer from Cypress. Shortly after smoking synthetic marijuana she had purchased from a convenience store, she suffered a series of strokes and was put into an induced coma. Bauer still suffered from blindness and partial paralysis even after months of treatment.

Another story is that of Kyle Smith from Forest Hill, Maryland, who experienced a psychotic breakdown after smoking synthetic marijuana when he was 15. He is now 18, has been institutionalized 17 times for psychiatric care, and has attempted to commit suicide three times….