As if K2 wasn’t bad enough, Dallas city officials are now concerned about formaldehyde-laced synthetic pot. Formaldehyde is a strong preservative used to embalm dead bodies. Councilmember Dwaine Caraway believes dealers are getting a hold of the chemical and dipping their supply of K2 in it.
Formaldehigh?
Councilmember Dwaine Caraway suggested that certain funeral homes are peddling formaldehyde as cut to drug dealers. By mixing the chemical with synthetic marijuana, dealers make their product seem more potent and cut costs.
However, they may be doing irreversible harm to their clientele.
According to DeWayne Hughes, a third generation funeral director, mixing formaldehyde with other chemicals is risky business.
“Formaldehyde is not a chemical that you should be inhaling,” he said. “It is a known cancer causing agent. It can do a lot of damage to you internally and externally. Somebody who does not have any training, and who is not knowledgeable, should not be messing with formaldehyde.”
Caraway wants to track funeral homes, and the smoke shops within his district, that may be selling formaldehyde-laced synthetic pot.
The Dallas Police Department is also working to cease all K2 drug operations in the district. While officers track down the dealers, city leaders are shifting their focus towards finding the chemicals being mixed into the K2.
Spraying Weed With Formaldehyde
Last year, we reported on a 26-year-old man who was charged with the abuse of a corpse and conspiracy. Joshua Lee Long had a stolen human brain soaking in formaldehyde, which he nicknamed “Freddy.”
Apparently, his weed wasn’t strong enough. So, Long and a friend began stealing some of Freddy’s formaldehyde to spray on his supply. Their hope was to get higher.
He was caught after his aunt found the brain in a department store bag under the porch while cleaning. She called detectives and reported it. During a phone conversation, Long explained to his aunt that he was using the formaldehyde to soak his pot and get high.
“The defendant related that he knew it was illegal to have the brain and that he and (another man) would spray the embalming fluid on ‘weed’ to get high,” wrote one of the investigators, Trooper John Boardman.
Smoking joints and cigarettes soaked in embalming fluid is nothing new. It’s like kids sniffing glue. When they have no access to safer recreational drugs like actual, real cannabis, kids use things like embalming fluid to get high.
The trend is making its way to K2 supplies, which are already dangerous enough without being mixed with other chemicals. Until cannabis is made federally legal, harmful alternatives will continue to wreak havoc.