San Diego County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to create an ordinance to make dangerous “designer” synthetic drugs such as “Spice” and “bath salts” public nuisances that could be fought with civil actions.
Supervisor Greg Cox and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said a civil ordinance would give local law enforcement another tool to fight a growing problem.
The Board of Supervisors directed County staff to return with a proposed ordinance in 60 days.
“With street names like ‘bath salts’ and ‘Spice,’” Cox said Tuesday, “You might be tempted to not take manufactured synthetic stimulants like these very seriously. But they are a very serious matter. They’re insidious drugs … popular, cheap, easily available and dangerous to the user, to the point of causing seizures and being potentially lethal, as well as dangerous to the community.”
California passed a law late last year, which took effect Jan. 1, to ban the sale of such drugs. And the federal Drug Enforcement Agency used its emergency powers last year to immediately outlaw synthetic chemicals used to create Spice — “fake marijuana” — and synthetic stimulants that have been marketed as “bath salts” and “plant food.”
Officials say usage of the drugs has spiked across the country over the last decade and have been sold over the counter at gas stations, liquor stores, convenient stores, smoke shops, or on the Internet.
Dumanis said that calls to poison control centers “skyrocketed into the thousands last year.”
“A County ordinance declaring synthetic stimulants and synthetic cannabinoids to be a public nuisance and subject to civil abatement will give us yet another tool for the County to fight this growing health risk,” Dumanis said.
