Spice Tuscaloosa

Public safety officials in Tuscaloosa said Thursday that synthetic marijuana, known commonly as spice, has killed one person and hospitalized two dozen others in the last 13 days. (Stephen Dethrage | AL.com)

Overdoses on synthetic marijuana known as 'spice' have spiked in Tuscaloosa County in the last two weeks, leaving one victim dead and two dozen others hospitalized.

The leaders of the area's public safety and law enforcement agencies held a joint press conference Thursday afternoon to make the public aware of the problem, which Tuscaloosa's Chief of Police Steven Anderson called "a public health crisis and a public safety crisis."

In the last year, agents of the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force have made at least two major seizures of synthetic marijuana and found

Public safety officials suspect the poisons are being added to make the 'spice' more potent and to give it hallucinogenic effects, but it is also sending users of the drug to the hospital.

Deric Jones, the medical director at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, said the hospital's campuses in Tuscaloosa and Northport have treated 24 cases of 'spice' overdose since March 28.

In those 13 days, one victim has died and others are comatose and on life support. Even in the comparatively mild cases, Jones said the victims are so agitated, aggressive and paranoid that many must be either physically restrained or chemically sedated before they can be treated.

Another major concern for public safety officials is that they believe the risk of serious health problems after using 'spice' doesn't depend on how much you take into your system.

"It's not dose-dependent," Jones said. "If you take one puff of this stuff, it very well may cause you to go completely into a coma or even die."

District Attorney Lyn Head praised the state legislature for adding broad language regulating synthetic drugs to Alabama's law three years ago. Since the verbiage of the law does not specifically name what chemicals a synthetic must contain to be illegal, there are no loopholes for manufacturers to exploit by simply trying out a new chemical cocktail when one recipe becomes outlawed.

Head promised to prosecute manufacturers and dealers of the drug to the fullest extent of the law, and asked members of the public to warn everyone they knew about the dangers of smoking 'spice.'

"We are actually not optimistic that the people who are using these substances are going to read these news reports," Head said. "What we're asking the public to do, to save lives, is to tell everyone you know about these substances. They actually contain chemicals that were designed to poison and kill living things, and people are consuming them."

One of the biggest challenges the synthetics present is that they look like legitimate marijuana, and previous iterations of the drug have had effects similar to the real deal. Now that various poisons are being used in their creation, the game has changed, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy said.

"This is not marijuana, okay? Tell the public, tell your children, that's not what we're dealing with here," Abernathy said. "This is not marijuana, it shouldn't be associated with marijuana, and it can kill you."

Head said the district attorney's office is working with other members on the WANTF board to discuss how to bring more serious charges to bear on the dealers and manufacturers of the drug, especially since it has now resulted in a death.

She said the board would meet this month to debate and discuss the possibility of filing manslaughter or wrongful death charges to dealers who could be directly connected to fatal overdoses.