Pa. boy, 13, ill after smoking synthetic pot, dies

[cleanhippie]

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pennsylvania eighth-grader who became ill after smoking synthetic marijuana and had a double lung transplant has died.

Tonya Rice tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (http://bit.ly/tk0Vod ) that her 13-year-old son, Brandon, died Thursday morning at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at UPMC.

The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser. The chemicals in the drugs caused extensive damage to his lungs. Brandon was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September.

http://news.yahoo.com/pa-boy-13-ill-smoking-synthetic-pot-dies-190654392.html

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SYNTHETIC pot? Blasphemy!

Smoked it our of a plastic PEZ dispenser? I'm sure that had NOTHING to do with his illness. ====>in case someone NEEDS this :sarcasm:




And yet at the end of the day, it is this countries drug policy that is to blame for this travesty.

[hobbit709]

1. Of course the toxic chemicals in burning plastic had nothing to do with it.

Drugs are the evil cause of everything doncha know..

[DFab420]

2. If actual mariujana was legal maybe he would have a) not smoked plastic

and b) not smoked fake pot.

[workinclasszero]

3. If real grass was legal this kid would still be alive. /nt

[cleanhippie]

5. Probably right.

Its too late now, though.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

7. Would it be legal for a 13 year old to smoke it?(n/m)

[JVS]

13. Unless he were stupid enough to smoke it from a fucking pez dispenser.

[Aerows]

4. At the risk of sounding totally out of touch

What's synthetic pot? I feel horrible for this child's family.

[cleanhippie]

6. Not really sure myself, but I know what it's NOT.

And safe, organic cannabis it is not.


We can thank our current administration for perpetuating this nonsense, too.

[Aerows]

18. Smoking chemicals vs. smoking pot

Yes, I'll choose smoking pot - not that I smoke pot.

The "war on drugs" has turned into a disaster.

[LadyHawkAZ]

9. I assume they mean Spice and similar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabis

Vile-smelling garbage. I have never tried it, but hear many complaints of headaches and trouble breathing from people who do.

[Aerows]

15. Ick

That's terrible.

[yawnmaster]

10. It is an herbal mix that may or may not have some mj type effects...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabis

and it may or may not be legal. It may fall under the designer drug category.

[Aerows]

16. Poor child

This is the effect of the drug war. More harmful things pumped into our kids. It angers me.

[eShirl]

34. no, it's synthetic chemicals on a base of rollable, smokable herbs

calling it "an herbal mix" is like calling coffee "water"

[riderinthestorm]

14. Unfortunately I've learned the hard way with my 15 year old that synthetic pot is usually incense

Yup, kids are getting high smoking incense these days. Someone probably sold it to him in a PEZ container. My daughter was getting it in Tic Tac boxes.

And this is such a horrible tragedy for this family. I feel like there but for the grace of God go I.... alas.

[Aerows]

17. So sorry to hear that

and so glad your child is okay. I didn't even know about this.

[riderinthestorm]

20. No, she's not okay but we're working on it.

Unfortunately I think it's going to be a long road with this kid. And thanks for your kind words.

Right now there are so many "synthetic cannabis" materials for kids to acquire, legally. Going to rehab has been an eye-opener for us. I had no idea about synthetic cannabis either but unfortunately for us, it's been a steep learning curve. I know people believe that if the real stuff were legal, all these problems would go away but that's simply not true. Drugs will never be legal for kids and they'll always do the crazy fringe shit dammit. I've never modelled mj use. It puts me to sleep within 10 minutes so it was never attractive to me but my daughter has grandfathers on both sides who were major alcoholics and I fear the addictive gene has landed in her with a vengeance.

There's an 11 year old in my daughter's group therapy from St Charles IL - one of the far western Chicago suburbs that prides itself on real wealth. When/if one of these kids dies from drugs they bought in a Pez container at school, I'll be sure to avoid these DU threads that mock the kid for somehow smoking the container. Trust me, these kids know better than that.

[Aerows]

22. Thank you for sharing

I fear for my niece. She's so intelligent, but I can see her getting into this, too. I'd never even heard of this, so it's good that I did. It's sold in Pez dispensers and Tic Tac boxes? Unbelievable, now we have to watch out kids for "candy".

I'm not a pot smoker, though I did back when I was 20. It made me so paranoid I thought I was having a heart attack and ate an entire jar of peanut butter. I can think of better things to do, thank you.

Sorry this has affected your family. I hope things work out, and I'm glad I heard about it, too. I'll be on the lookout with my own nieces.

[riderinthestorm]

28. Your niece, my daughter, are the smart ones which means they are usually fearless

they think they "know" what to look for, so they won't be the ones who smoke tainted stuff. Unfortunately we know better as adults. Tainted stuff is just a fact of smoking illegal dope, real or synthetic.

You won't know unless your nieces sleep over so make a point to have an open door. I caught my daughter when she fell asleep with the stuff "out" beside her bed. But the bleary morning eyes had me wary for MONTHS before I caught her with the drugs. I grabbed her cell phone while she was still too stoned to resist and that's when I learned all the hard truths - dealing, exchanging sex for drugs - 14 years old and this had already been going on for months. You are wise to be wary at 13. Like I said, there's an 11 year old in her group sessions, one boy whose 12, and another whose 13 - all of them hard core pot users already. Real pot. I've only discovered about synthetic pot (and my daughter was using that too in retrospect now that I know).

[Aerows]

30. Thank you for the advice

Like I said, I love my nieces like they were my own. I don't want to be the "nosy aunt" but I'm going to make sure we have a movie night where they sleep over.

Maybe I should be the "nosy aunt". I love them dearly. Can't help it.

[MH1]

26. If the real stuff were legal for adults,

it would be easier to get for kids. And as some people are finding out, kids are going to experiment with stuff. To me, it just seems we'd want the path of least resistance to lead to the less dangerous stuff rather than the crap that will kill them. Not too easy a path, mind you, because then they would just blow right by it to the dangerous stuff anyway. And I don't believe MJ is 100% benign to teenagers. Just oh so much better than many of the alternatives.

If pot had been a lot harder to get than the chemical crap when I was a teenager, I probably wouldn't be alive to have this discussion.

[Aerows]

19. My niece is 13.

I hope to god she isn't smoking this kind of stuff.

She's a bright kid but I hope she isn't this experimental.

[riderinthestorm]

23. My daughter gets straight A's and is in all honors classes. She started using drugs when she was 14.

She still gets all A's as a freshman, hasn't studied once as far as I can tell. Never does homework at home - she does it on the bus or in class while the teacher is lecturing. Very bright. But clearly with an addictive gene. Her grandfather (my dad) is a true math prodigy - the youngest project manager at Bell Labs, full scholarships to both Julliard and every single math university in the nation (he chose MIT, graduated in 18 months with a dual degree in math AND electrical engineering). But a raging alcoholic by the time he was 40. My husband's father was the same kind of alcoholic.

My dad's sober now - finally sobered up at 70 years old. I really hope she doesn't take that long :(

When we first discovered last Christmas I also hoped it was just "experimental". Alas.

[Aerows]

25. Wow

It sounds like you are doing the right things for her, though. I'll be on the lookout. I hate to be the "nosy aunt" but I love my nieces and if I knew nothing about this kind of thing, I KNOW my sister is clueless.

I sincerely hope your daughter gets through this.

[Aerows]

27. Are there signs?

I don't want to be "nosy" but I'd like to know if my niece is into this kind of thing. I love her like she was my own.

What can I do?

[riderinthestorm]

29. Posted upthread. Be the "open door aunt". The one she asks to sleep over with...

my daughter fell asleep stoned and when I went to turn off her light, I finally discovered her with the joints she was rolling for sale, a bong, a large quantity of MJ.....

She was 14. After going through her text and voices messages we knew she was hard core.

But many bleary eyed mornings when I woke her for school had me extremely worried. I already knew she was 'experimenting", I had no idea it had gone this far. My husband and I had tried to take a low key approach and let her "experiment". She just went the whole 9 yards....

For us however, there weren't any other signs. As I've said, she's brilliant so her grades have never slipped. She's one of the leads in her school play (as a freshman!), she's an unbelievable actress. Has a large and varied group of friends from theater geeks, national level horse competitors in an extreme sport, to the chess club (yes she's a member). Sounds like your niece is the same - bright and fearless. Just be the aunt she goes to and you'll probably have the alarm bells ringing soon if you suspect.

Yes, candy dispensers are how they are distributing drugs in school. Watch for a sudden interest in candies that come in "hard" packaging (like Pez, Tic Tacs, Altoids etc.) Those are distribution methods.

[Aerows]

31. Thanks for giving me that advice

I love my nieces and want them to succeed. I didn't realize drugs were distributed like candies. I will be an "open door aunt". I guess I just didn't know all the things they could get into.

[jmowreader]

32. What synthetic pot is

It is sold as "herbal incense."

It is a mixture of various, and exotic-sounding, herbs and spices (damiana is always a popular component of this) sprayed with a chemical. The chemical used to be JWH-018 (JWH is for John W. Huffman, the mad scientist who invented it) but can now be JWH-019, JWH-073 or JWH-200, all of which do essentially the same thing, because JWH-018 is illegal in many jurisdictions and they've got a piss test for it, but not for the other three.

Now, if a truly liberal media would have written this, the head would have been...

Boy who inhales burning plastic from makeshift pot pipe dies

Kids these days. I swear, the level of education in this country has just gone downhill...back in the 1970s when we had REAL potheads, this kid would have made a pipe out of a Coke can and we'd have never heard of him.

[riderinthestorm]

33. The article is NOT clear on whether the Pez dispenser is the pipe, or simply the case for the pot

Sorry but in my case, I now know that the candy dispensers are the transportation device for the drugs. The article is NOT clear that the Pez dispenser was the pipe or was merely the vehicle where the drugs were hidden.

I've had a crash course in drug use amongst teens in the past 6 months and NONE of them would have used a plastic container to smoke the drugs. The plastic hard container (preferably opague like Altoids or Pez) are how the drugs are sold at school. They still use bongs and pipes just like we did to actually get high. Unless you prove to me otherwise, that Pez dispensers are actually being used as pipes, I say bullshit. I'll ask the substance abuse counselors that my daughter goes to visit on Monday about it. They'd surely know since they see too many teens daily and know all the scoop. My daughter just laughed at the story and also called bullshit.

Are you a teen? My girl is just 15 years old by 2 weeks.

[yawnmaster]

8. I'm suspecting that smoking the pez dispenser was the actual cause. Good advice...

don't smoke plastic.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[elias7]

12. inhaled hydrocarbons are well known to be toxic to the lungs

when people drink gasoline or other oils, the main concern is if they were to puke and aspirate the hydrocarbons into the lungs, in which case a pretty sever chemical pneumonitis develops. The GI tract is somewhat irritated, but not usually in a substantial way.

[NorthCarolina]

21. Synthetic Pot??? Never heard of it. nt

[Aerows]

24. Me neither.

This was an eye-opener.

[Herlong]

35. The kid was 13 years old and he died

wtf is your problem

[Aerows]

36. Sorry to hear that

But I don't understand the venom over someone else losing their child, also, or their family member.