The Synthetic Killer Called K2

When Daniel Perez jumped into the Concho River’s shallow waters Monday afternoon, he wasn’t quite himself. He and a group of friends had come from the YMCA to the area near the Bosque, where they decided to go for an afternoon swim. Less than 24 hours later those friends were giving statements to detectives of the San Angelo Police Department. Daniel Perez was missing.

According to their testimonies, Perez had become aggressive that afternoon and had at some point exhibited seizure like behavior. When the others were ready to leave he denied them, and due to the aggression he’d shown, they left without their friend. He was also said to have been on K2, or synthetic marijuana.

Perez’s body was found Thursday morning by a jogger, who was running the same stretch that SAPD, game wardens and SAPD Lake Division officers had spent hours exploring Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. His body will be transported to Lubbock for an autopsy, police said.

As of yet, concerned and shocked community members can only speculate as to what led to the death of an able-bodied 15-year-old boy in no more than three feet of water, and many are looking at the drug for an answer.

Paulette Schell, Prevention Director for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Council of the Concho Valley (ADACCV), says that the behavior described by Perez’s friends is consistent with what the council knows about the drug, an illegal form of synthetic marijuana.

“There can be no effect at all or there can be extreme paranoia, effects on the opposite spectrum, suicidal ideation, the trigger of addiction—it runs the gamut, and that’s the really scary part,” she said.

Through their prevention programs the council has heard different descriptions of the side effects triggered by K2 usage, and seizures, such as the one Perez is said to have, are one of the descriptors.

“That is definitely something we have heard time and time again from people who have used and have had the negative response,” Schell said. “One person can have seizures or convulsions or stiffening of the muscles and the next person has nothing at all happen to them. It’s highly unpredictable, so the seizure activity doesn’t surprise me.”

K2 first appeared on the market in the early 2000s, Schell said, and initially, it was a legal substitute for marijuana. The idea behind the product, she said, was to provide an alternative that didn’t show up on urine tests. Gradually, the federal government cracked down on the original formula, so the creators modified the formula in order to not be affected by the new laws.

“The DEA would ban the next generation and the creators would change the composition a little bit more,” she said. “So it’s kind of like a copy of a copy of a copy. What ended up happening is, what we have now as synthetic cannabis or K2 as a product is nothing like it was originally. And it has none of the same effects, generally, as marijuana does. So it’s a totally different thing now.”

In July of 2012, the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act was passed, making synthetic marijuana in all of its forms illegal in the United States. Despite the illegality, the drug can be purchased from a plethora of online sites and finds its way into the homes and pockets of adults and teens in San Angelo.

“It is pretty prevalent, especially when we were first hearing about it in the national news we were getting lots of reports from users that they were trying it,” Schell said. “The good news is that most of the time the reaction to the drug was negative. They didn’t like it, so they would tell each other. What we heard more often than not was ‘don’t mess with that. You’ll have bad trips. It’s not good.’”

Due to the variety of K2 manufacturers and the multiple composition changes that the active ingredient has undergone over the years, Schell says they really don’t know what is in it anymore because that each batch of it is different.

“There’s no nutritional information, there’s no ‘this is what’s actually in here’,” she said. “What it will say is ‘Not for human consumption’ or it will say something like ‘Plant food’. It’s not meant to be ingested, but that’s exactly why it was created.”

SAPD Public Information Officer Lt. Mike Hernandez added that the SAPD has "had several instances since it came out," but said that unless the suspect admits to usage of K2 or is carrying it on his person, it's difficult to pinpoint the drug. He also stated that the state police are constantly working to identify new brands and types of K2 so that officers know how to classify possession charges and their penalties. "It's hard," he said, alluding to how many types are available.

On the street, K2 is often referred to as “potpourri”, a name meant to disguise it’s actual use, Schell said. Sometimes, this is also printed on the package. The substance itself she described as “leafy” and that it resembles marijuana. The leafy substance is then sprayed with the active ingredient and as commonly considered a hallucinogen.

“What we’ve heard is …that the hallucinations that can occur are very scary,” she said. “That it is not a marijuana replacement, the effects are not the same, that it is more of a hallucinogen. You can’t predict how long you’re going to be high. There’s no accurate dosing of it. That’s the primary thing that we hear.”

Schell says it is possible to overdose on K2, and that it may elevate the heart rate or lead to seizures. Each individual body is going to react differently, she said, but the effects could be deadly.

“I would say we have had quite a bit of drop in the last couple of years [of usage], but we do still hear a lot of chatter about it,” she said. “We still talk about it in schools, we still have people that come to our treatment facilities with synthetics of the drug of choice, we still hear about the use of the drug on base, so we know it’s here. And obviously, with the death of Daniel, we know it’s deadly.”

Currently, the long-term effects of K2 on the brain are unknown, Schell said, but ADACCV does offer help for those battling addiction. Treatment is individualized and comprehensive, and each person is assessed before treatment begins.

“Our programs are comprehensive in nature and follow a wellness model to get that person back into society, back into their life, and to do that without having to use substances,” Schell said. “Addiction is a disease and we treat it that way.”

Those seeking help may contact ADACCV at 325-224-3481, or call the crisis hotline at 800-880-9641 24 hours a day.

“It is sad when we lose someone from our community, and even more tragic when it’s a young person,” Schell said in the wake of Perez’s death Thursday. “We need to do everything can as a community to keep our youth safe and to not pretend that drugs aren’t out there and make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”