Chemist behind "Spice" drug production arrested

spice

Exhibit A: Exporter of chemicals used to create spice arrested. [NYT]

Haijun Tian, was arrested at the airport by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, the prize at the end of an elaborate sting operation aimed at stemming the importation and sale of spice, the street name for a family of synthetic drugs that look like marijuana and are sprayed with a dangerous hallucinogenic chemical, then smoked.

Mr. Tian is a leading manufacturer and exporter of the chemicals used to create spice, the D.E.A. says, and his arrest underscores rising concerns that China, with its large and poorly regulated pharmaceutical sector, could become to spice what Colombia or Peru has been for cocaine, or Afghanistan is to heroin.

Exhibit B: Spice cases not declining in Shoals

It was a drug that many in law enforcement thought Alabama had taken control of four years ago when the state became the second in the nation to outlaw the substance that is a mix of dried plant materials sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids and other chemicals such as pesticides and rat poison. That was not so, and a new wave of Spice use caught the attention of the state health department, which now is monitoring the intake of patients suspected of using spice.

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