Spice, otherwise known as K2, Moon Rocks, or Skunk is a lab-produced, mind-altering drug that's been soaring in popularity in recent years.
Giant underground laboratories, many of which are in China, are churning out thousands of pounds of the stuff. This week, the DEA arrested a man whose lab likely produced the chemicals in some 70% of the spice sold in the US, the New York Times reports.
Although it's often marketed as a "safer alternative to traditional marijuana," spice is dangerous and can be deadly.
This is spice. It looks fairly harmless — like herbs in a shiny package — but it isn't.
Reports suggest that since 2009, drugs like spice, or synthetic marijuana, have killed roughly 1,000 Americans — many of them young people in high school.
The drugmakers change up the specific ingredients in the drugs so fast — and produce them in such massive quantities — that drug enforcement can't keep up.
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