A few puffs - and then 'the most horrific experience in my life'
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LAKE STEVENS, Wash. - It was such a frightening trip - Cody Pennebaker thought he was dead. And the Lake Stevens man isn't alone.
As a deadly designer drug craze grows in strength, more people are having dangerous reactions.
A hidden camera investigation by KATU's sister-station in Seattle discovered that, despite warnings and new laws, these drugs are still available all over our region.
"I was scared," says Pennebaker, "it was just so horrible and violent."
Words can't describe the horror of that afternoon. With just a few small puffs of "spice," a product still sold over the counter all Western Washington, Cody Pennebaker became a different person. Normally soft-spoken, sweet-natured, animal-loving Cody turned rabidly violent.
"I was scared because my neighbor had just said that he had hit him and I was afraid that he was gonna hit me!" says Pennebaker's wife Jill Fox.
Panicked, she called 911. "He was on the ground and he was screaming at the top of his lungs," she says.
Pennebaker was so out of it, police and paramedics figured he was on PCP or methamphetamine.
"The thing that scared me the most is when I started blacking out and losing my mind," says Pennebaker.
"Spice" is the catch-all name for literally hundreds of chemical compounds known as "synthetic marijuana." Though packaged as potpourri and labeled "not for human consumption," it's common knowledge these small packets sold by the gram are meant to be smoked like pot.
But Washington's Poison Center says a spice high is much more extreme - and much more dangerous.
"They cause increased heart rate, they cause increased blood pressure, they cause agitation," says Dr. Tom Martin with the Poison Center.
And even worse?
"They cause sometimes very strong psychiatric reactions like delirium, delusions or paranoia or psychosis that can last for days." Did you get that? For days.
That's what Pennebaker says happened to him - with what he thought was a legal and safe compound.
"I hope to God that no one ever, ever has to go through what I went through, 'cause it was just the most horrific experience ever in my life, ever," he says.
And the number of overdoses is rising. Through the first seven months of this year, the Poison Center had already had 95 overdose reports, nearly four times as many reports as the same period last year. That's despite the Washington Board of Pharmacy's emergency ban on the drugs last spring.
So we asked Pennebaker to help us test how well that ban is working. He went into two different smoke shops with our undercover camera crew. And with no problem at all, he bought three different packages of what the salespeople told him was spice.
"Just easy breezy," says Pennebaker, "like buying soda from a store."
In fact undercover cameras show that Spice potpourri is available at many local tobacco shops. And managers and wholesalers all told us - it's legal.
Clerk David Kang told us that in response to earlier problems their product has changed.
"I think it's new stuff, my owner says it's new one," he says.
In fact, Kang showed us lab paperwork alleging test results that prove their products don't contain the banned substances.
But that - according to experts - is the real problem. Chemists change the recipe by just a molecule - just enough to stay ahead of the law.
"You just have no idea what you are taking," says Dr. Martin, "they change from week to week, from month to month."
The new recipe means our state's new ban no longer applies. So the drug is suddenly legal once again - but, according to the experts still just as dangerous.
"It's really Russian roulette when you use these drugs," Martin says.
Cody Pennebaker says it doesn't matter if what he had was legal or illegal, he believes it's all dangerous and should be banned.
"Something has to be done, it has to be stopped, they have to put an end to it."
We have learned that there are literally hundreds of minor chemical changes that can be made to this synthetic marijuana - in other countries those recipes are changed weekly. So until we find a more effective way of getting ahead of this, the experts tell us this nightmare will only continue.
As a deadly designer drug craze grows in strength, more people are having dangerous reactions.
A hidden camera investigation by KATU's sister-station in Seattle discovered that, despite warnings and new laws, these drugs are still available all over our region.
"I was scared," says Pennebaker, "it was just so horrible and violent."
Words can't describe the horror of that afternoon. With just a few small puffs of "spice," a product still sold over the counter all Western Washington, Cody Pennebaker became a different person. Normally soft-spoken, sweet-natured, animal-loving Cody turned rabidly violent.
"I was scared because my neighbor had just said that he had hit him and I was afraid that he was gonna hit me!" says Pennebaker's wife Jill Fox.
Panicked, she called 911. "He was on the ground and he was screaming at the top of his lungs," she says.
Pennebaker was so out of it, police and paramedics figured he was on PCP or methamphetamine.
"The thing that scared me the most is when I started blacking out and losing my mind," says Pennebaker.
"Spice" is the catch-all name for literally hundreds of chemical compounds known as "synthetic marijuana." Though packaged as potpourri and labeled "not for human consumption," it's common knowledge these small packets sold by the gram are meant to be smoked like pot.
But Washington's Poison Center says a spice high is much more extreme - and much more dangerous.
"They cause increased heart rate, they cause increased blood pressure, they cause agitation," says Dr. Tom Martin with the Poison Center.
And even worse?
"They cause sometimes very strong psychiatric reactions like delirium, delusions or paranoia or psychosis that can last for days." Did you get that? For days.
That's what Pennebaker says happened to him - with what he thought was a legal and safe compound.
"I hope to God that no one ever, ever has to go through what I went through, 'cause it was just the most horrific experience ever in my life, ever," he says.
And the number of overdoses is rising. Through the first seven months of this year, the Poison Center had already had 95 overdose reports, nearly four times as many reports as the same period last year. That's despite the Washington Board of Pharmacy's emergency ban on the drugs last spring.
So we asked Pennebaker to help us test how well that ban is working. He went into two different smoke shops with our undercover camera crew. And with no problem at all, he bought three different packages of what the salespeople told him was spice.
"Just easy breezy," says Pennebaker, "like buying soda from a store."
In fact undercover cameras show that Spice potpourri is available at many local tobacco shops. And managers and wholesalers all told us - it's legal.
Clerk David Kang told us that in response to earlier problems their product has changed.
"I think it's new stuff, my owner says it's new one," he says.
In fact, Kang showed us lab paperwork alleging test results that prove their products don't contain the banned substances.
But that - according to experts - is the real problem. Chemists change the recipe by just a molecule - just enough to stay ahead of the law.
"You just have no idea what you are taking," says Dr. Martin, "they change from week to week, from month to month."
The new recipe means our state's new ban no longer applies. So the drug is suddenly legal once again - but, according to the experts still just as dangerous.
"It's really Russian roulette when you use these drugs," Martin says.
Cody Pennebaker says it doesn't matter if what he had was legal or illegal, he believes it's all dangerous and should be banned.
"Something has to be done, it has to be stopped, they have to put an end to it."
We have learned that there are literally hundreds of minor chemical changes that can be made to this synthetic marijuana - in other countries those recipes are changed weekly. So until we find a more effective way of getting ahead of this, the experts tell us this nightmare will only continue.
