By Rhonda Ramsey,
P.O.V. Contributing Writer
After reading
this, speechless is an understatement. Please take a look at this article from ABCNews.
"A
Texas man faces a felony charge after he allegedly bit, killed and ate a
housemate's pet dog while high on the synthetic drug "spice."
The
alleged attack is the latest in the series of violent and bizarre incidents
linked to spice, which mimics the effects of marijuana, and bath salts, which
mimics cocaine.
Michael
Daniel, 22, allegedly smoked spice in his Waco, Texas home before he assaulted
his housemates and then ran out of the house into his yard, where he began
crawling around on his hands and knees. He barked and growled at a neighbor and
chased him back into his home.
Daniel
then allegedly took his housemate's dog, a medium-sized spaniel mix, out onto
the house's porch. He allegedly beat and strangled the dog, according to Waco
Police Sgt. Patrick Swanton, and then began chewing "hunks of flesh"
from the animal.
Daniel's
housemates called police and requested emergency assistance, saying Daniel was
"going crazy." Officers arrived at the house to find Daniel sitting
on the porch with "blood and fur around his mouth" and with the dead
dog lying in his lap, Swanton said.
Daniel,
who police say told his housemates he was "on a bad trip" just before
the alleged rampage on June 14, was charged on Monday with cruelty to a
non-livestock animal."
The
story comes days after Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed bills banning the
sale of synthetic marijuana. The drug was linked to several tragedies around
the state, including a Bloomfield Township teen's reported fatal overdose and
more than 40 other states have passed similar bills. Daniel's alleged attack
also comes in the wake of a series of cannibalistic attacks, mostly on the East
Coast, some of which have been linked to another drug commonly called
"bath salts."
In
case you are not familiar, here is a bit of information on synthetic cannabis
and “bath salts."
“Research on the safety of synthetic cannabis is
only now becoming available. Initial studies are focused on the role of
synthetic cannabis and psychosis. It seems likely that synthetic cannabis can
precipitate psychosis and in some cases it is prolonged. These studies suggest
that synthetic cannabinoid intoxication is associated with acute psychosis,
worsening of previously stable psychotic disorders, and also may have the
ability to trigger a chronic (long-term) psychotic disorder among vulnerable
individuals such as those with a family history of mental illness.”
Here
is some information on bath salts from webmd.com:
"'The presumption is that most bath salts are
MDPV, or methylenedioxypyrovalerone, although newer pyrovalerone derivatives
are being made by illegal street chemists. Nobody really knows, because there
is no way to test for these substances," says Zane Horowitz, MD, an
emergency room physician and medical director of the Oregon Poison Center.
Why are they called bath salts?
"It’s confusing. Is this what we put in our bathrubs, like Epsom
salts? No. But by marketing them as bath salts and labeling them 'not for human
consumption,' they have been able to avoid them being specifically enumerated
as illegal," Horowitz says.
What do you experience when you take bath salts?
"Agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, chest pain, suicidality. It’s
a very scary stimulant that is out there. We get high blood pressure and
increased pulse, but there’s something more, something different that’s causing
these other extreme effects. But right now, there’s no test to pick up this
drug. The only way we know if someone has taken them is if they tell you they
have.
The clinical presentation is similar to mephedrone [a chemical found in
other designer drugs], with agitation, psychosis, and stimulatory effects. Both
of these agents should be of concern, as severe agitated behavior, like an
amphetamine overdose, has occurred.
A second concern is the ongoing suicidality in these patients, even after
the stimulatory effects of the drugs have worn off. At least for MDPV, there
have been a few highly publicized suicides a few days after their use,'"
Horowitz says.
A man eating a
dog -- a pet? My first thought is: I hope that if there were children nearby,
they were not around to see something like this. I love animals far too much to
even imagine this scenario. There have been multiple reports of synthetic
cannabis use being connected to fatal overdose, people eating one another and
now, people eating live animals?
I will leave you
with a few questions:
1.
Now
that synthetic cannabis is being banned, do you think more potentially
dangerous alternatives to “the real thing” will be created and banned? (An
ongoing cycle/trend).
2.
Do
you think people are using synthetic cannabis as a substitute for marijuana?
3.
Do
you believe marijuana should be illegal?
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