Synthetic Drugs

This Feb.15, 2010, file photo shows a package of K2, a concoction of dried herbs sprayed with chemicals.

(Kelley McCall, AP Photo)

AKRON, Ohio -- K2, the synthetic marijuana product increasingly notorious for devastating health consequences, has now mucked up Summit County's drug treatment programs; solutions aren't coming easily.

Six patients at Oriana House's Summit County secure drug treatment center were hospitalized earlier this month after K2 sent them into tremors. One spent three days in an intensive care unit recovering from the drug's effects.

The County Facilities Governing Board, which oversees drug treatment and rehabilitation facilities used by local courts, met Friday for the first time since the overdose incident.

Oriana House's Executive Vice President of Operations told the board that new tests introduced last year could help weed out the volatile drug, but there are still no answers as to how the six patients got the drug through Oriana House's screening protocols.

"This is a scourge and we hope that to start getting more positive (tests) for K2," Executive Vice President Anne Connell-Freund told the board Friday. "They are telling us that they only reason they are using it is because they know they won't get caught."

Oriana House upgraded its testing for K2 in October, but that may only help for so long. K2 is not a single substance, rather it has become a brand name for varying versions of the drug.

Chemists continually alter the ingredients in K2, not only making the drug effects less predictable, but also making the substance undetectable to new drug tests, Connell said Friday.

New state laws have helped prosecute dealers and store owners who sell synthetic drugs by enabling prosecutors to apply Schedule I drug charges if they can prove the drug is similar enough to a synthetic substance.

But now the drugs are causing problems for treatment centers like Orianna House, which rely on regular drug tests to keep patients clean.

As for how the K2 got into the treatment center, officials still have no answers. All six patients have been expelled and face jail time for violating conditions of their treatment program.

"We are hoping, now that they are out of the program, that they will be more likely to tell us what happened," Connell said.

All patients at Oriana House who leave for a work program are strip searched upon return. In October the facility enhanced its search techniques and now requires patients to do what's called a "bunny hop," a maneuver in which inmates are required to squat with their knees together and hop two times.

Another proposal discussed at Friday's meeting involved banning smoking inside the treatment facilities. Patients at Oriana House are currently allowed to bring cigarettes into the facility so long as packs are unopened, however Connell said the smoking paraphernalia provides a vehicle to consume K2.

With more resources being devoted toward securing the facilities, some are concerned that the efficacy of the treatment programs could be compromised. But Common Pleas Judge Thomas Teodosio, a member of the facilities board, made it clear that security should be a priority.

"I put two people in a drug rehabilitation program that are now going to prison," Teodosio said Friday. "That's not good."