"Cloud 9" often comes in liquid form.
With numerous teens ending up in emergency rooms, officials from Macomb and Wayne counties moved Wednesday to ban the latest trendy, synthetic, legal drug known as "Cloud 9."
Fox 2 reports that the ban, which carries penalties including fines and jail, comes two years after counties banned the synthetic marijuana known as "K2" or "Spice." The Macomb Daily reports that there have been about two dozen emergency room visits in Southeast Michigan related to the drug.
"We're seeing it's becoming a problem," Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel tells Erika Erickson of the station. "We're hearing stories in our emergency rooms from parents and we decided to act a lot quicker."
The designer drug with other street names like "Hookah Relax," or "Crown," is made up of chemicals found in fake bath salts or air freshener and can have deadly side effects. Some ill-effects from the drug include heart attack symptoms, paranoia, hallucinations and hypertension, Fox 2 reported. Some users describe the drug as more potent than Ritalin or cocaine.
The drug, which is often sold in gas stations and convenience stores, usually comes in the form of a liquid in eyedropper bottles. It can be inhaled, ingested or used with e-cigarettes.
"It's actually hard to identify it," said Dr. James Larkin. "Because there is no specific drug test you can do as a screen to look and see what the person ingested or smoked."
Wayne County moved to ban the synthetic drug on Wednesday after six high school students were hospitalized in Canton and Westland, Fox 2 reported.
"If you're peddling synthetic products that could cause injury, harm, death to kids, stop," the station quotes state Atty. Gen. Bill Schuette as saying.
