A holiday sweet bread that caused dozens in Orange County to become ill might have been deliberately laced with a synthetic drug that mimics the active ingredient in marijuana, the president of a Santa Ana-based lab said Tuesday.

Neil Spingarn, a pharmacologist who heads up S&N Laboratories, tested a sample of the Three Kings Day bread and found it contaminated with “a substantial” amount of a synthetic cannabinoid – an artificial THC with intensified effects. THC is the main chemical ingredient in marijuana.

“The levels in the cake are not small.” Spingarn said. “What is most striking is that this was not inadvertent.”

The Register obtained a sample of the bread from a Santa Ana woman who said it made her ill last week and hired S&N Labs, which is licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, to test it.

The Orange County Health Care Agency has said its own preliminary lab results found a unidentified synthetic drug in the bread, prompting the Santa Ana Police Department to launch a criminal investigation. Health investigators have not confirmed a specific drug and further lab results are expected within two weeks, authorities said.

Neither agency would comment Tuesday on the findings by the outside lab.

The owners of the bakery that made the bread, Cholula’s Bakery in Santa Ana, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. They have been cooperating with investigators, police said.

The bakery made the bread for the Three Kings Day celebration on Jan. 6 and distributed it to nine stores in Orange County and one in Long Beach.

More than 40 people who ate the bread became ill last week with symptoms that included heart palpitations, dizziness, numbness and hallucinations. Ireri Hinojosa, one of the customers who purchased the bread and received treatment at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, shared a sample of the tainted bread with the Register.

S&N Laboratories tested that sample and found the presence of a chemical that’s commonly used to make synthetic pot, often called “spice,” “incense” and “K2.”

It’s a chemical alternative to marijuana that often is diluted with water, sprayed onto herbs and smoked like marijuana. It is sold in head shops in small shiny packages for about $50 for about 2 grams, according to Vijay Rathi, a special agent with the DEA.

Spice looks like marijuana, but its side effects are more severe and can include hallucinations, aggressive behavior and hypertension, police and health officials say. The potpourri of chemicals are not listed on the packaging.

“It’s a bigger high, and they market it as a legal high; that’s why people are willing to pay more for it,” Rathi said.

Spingarn identified the specific strain contaminating the bread as JWH-122, named after John W. Huffman, a chemist who designed synthetic cannabis to use for in vitro research on the interaction between drugs and brain receptors. This strain is illegal, but that’s not true of all synthetic drugs. Underground chemists in China and India are making new strains quicker than the DEA and U.S. Food and Drug Administration can ban them.

“The people who are making this stuff, they’re chemists and they’re very familiar with the Controlled Substances Act. All they do is check the federal register to see what’s illegal,” Rathi said. “It’s completely frustrating.”

Spice sent 11,000 people to U.S. emergency rooms in 2010. That number soared the following year, to 28,500. Most cases were teenagers, according to the DEA.

Other types of synthetic drugs include those similar to amphetamine and ecstasy, including “bath salts.”

Francisco Mora, who works as a butcher, was among six workers at La Bodega Market in Orange who fell ill after eating the rosca de reyes sweet bread.

He said Tuesday he still has back pain and headaches and his hands shake. It was upsetting, he said, to hear that someone possibly laced the bread.

“They’re not thinking of all the people that would react to it, including babies and older people,” he said.

Contact the writer: jchandler@ocregister.com and @jennakchandler on Twitter