The Providence St. Peter emergency room doctor who treated Jhanna Parker’s son said the 17-year-old boy was delirious and experiencing muscle contractions. The teen also had an elevated heart rate of 170 beats per minute and low blood pressure, Dr. Joe Pellicer said.
“He could have died,” Pellicer said.
Parker said that because the product is legal, her son didn’t think it would hurt him.
“He thought it was going to be like chugging a Red Bull” energy drink, Parker said.
Pellicer said a toxicology screen of the teen didn’t turn up any illegal drugs or intoxicants. He said there is a “high likelihood” that his medical issues were caused by the “herbal spice” product that he told emergency room personnel he had smoked.
Parker said that an 18-year-old friend of her son’s had obtained the product legally at Fire & Earth, an Olympia smoke shop on Fourth Avenue. Individuals typically must be 18 to enter and purchase items from the store.
On Monday, the owner of Fire & Earth said she will no longer sell the brand of herbs smoked by Parker’s son.
Sarah Schwarz said she took the item off her shelves Monday morning, as soon as she got the call from Parker. A sign at the front desk of her store and a message on its Web site explained Schwarz’s reasoning.
“After receiving a first-hand report of a young man who nearly lost his life over the weekend due to ingesting an herbal spice product, Fire & Earth has decided to discontinue the sales of these products,” reads Fire & Earth’s website.
Schwarz would not identify the brand that she pulled from the shelves, but Parker said it was called Freedom Spice. Schwarz said it was the only brand of herbal spice she had sold.
Schwarz said Monday that the product label warns that “it is not fit for human consumption” and is meant to be used as incense.
But a website advertising Spice Gold sends a mixed message. Pictures of marijuana leaves are depicted on the site. And the product description states that it is “without exception the very absolute strongest herbal smoke in the world. … This exotic herbal blend really works! … It is absolutely intoxicating and extremely potent.”
Schwarz said the herbal products she was selling were priced at $22.95 a gram, and were typically sold in 1-, 2- or 4-gram packages. She noted that even though her store has pulled the items, other smoke shops can continue to sell them legally.
Nationwide, health problems caused by such products – sometimes marketed as a form of synthetic marijuana – are making headlines for causing elevated heart rates, hallucinations or even suicide. Some states are considering banning the products.
Olympia police Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad said he has not heard of any complaints about the products. Thurston County Narcotics Task Force supervisor Lt. Loreli Thompson said she had not heard of any problems locally with the products, but she has received alerts from national law enforcement organizations about them.
“There are efforts to regulate it nationally, but it’s legal right now, which makes it difficult for us to intercede,” Thompson said. “We are looking into it.”
Pellicer said he has never before seen a patient admitted to the ER after smoking such a product.
One briefing forwarded to The Olympian by Bjornstad from the Office of National Drug Control Policy states that in June, a teenager in Iowa underwent an extreme panic attack and then shot himself after taking a form of synthetic marijuana sold in smoke shops. Iowa officials say they will seek a ban on the products, according to the briefing.
Parker said her son’s reaction Thursday night was scary – he was hallucinating and had to be placed in restraints. She said she went public with his story as a warning to others.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465 jpawloski@theolympian.com
