Van Buren Township Police Captain Gregory Laurain said on June 4 his undercover officers were sent out to check local party stores and other businesses and reported there were no stores in VBT selling K2 or other synthetic drugs.
“We don’t have an issue here,” said Captain Laurain. “We’re on top of it.”
Captain Laurain said the statement by Tom Fielder reported in last week’s Independent concerning K2 (Spice) saying undercover officers found it for sale “everywhere”, is information that is about a year and a half old.
Retired Police Captain Ken Brooks, who was active in Growth Works with Fielder, was quoted by Fielder at the Belleville City Council meeting June 4. Growth Works is an outpatient substance abuse treatment center with a contract to help juvenile offenders.
Fielder said Brooks reported sales of the synthetic drug in the township, but Laurain stressed that is outdated information.
About a year and a half ago, the growing presence of synthetic drugs was reported by Growth Works and Captain Brooks sent out a letter to VBT businesses warning them about the substance, which is legal to sell but devastating to users.
Then, Lt. Mark Buckberry, who was head of the special investigative unit (SIU) at the time, sent officers out to check township businesses and found there were some sales of the substances, but it wasn’t rampant, Laurain said.
He said Captain Brooks was proactive with sending the letters to alert businesses a year and a half ago and the department has remained alert to the problem.
Laurain said there was only one incident the department had with K2 that he knows of.
He said he understands French Landing party store, located on Belleville Road across from Meijer, posted a pledge at the store not to sell such substances.
Laurain said if anyone in the community knows of a local place selling K2 or other synthetic drugs, he or she should drop the police a line to let them know.
Belleville Police Chief Gene Taylor said there have been no complaints about sales of K2 in the City of Belleville. He said merchants have been sensitive to the community and are not selling the synthetic designer drugs, although they are legal to sell.
Chief Taylor said the city is waiting to see what the Legislature does about the problem, since laws are being considered in Lansing.
Sumpter Township Police Chief James Pierce went out to talk to merchants last week about the substances and was assured by the businesses that they did not want to get involved in sales of the drugs.
Recently the use of K2 (also known as Spice) has been reported by the Detroit-area media since the substance, which currently is legal, has been blamed for users becoming violent. One young man smoked K2 before dying on a Michigan beach. Murders have been blamed on the substance.
K2 supposedly is sold as potpourri, but some teens ingest it to get high. Side effects include agitation, confusion, panic attacks, hallucinations, seizures and stroke. Synthetic drugs are sold in brightly colored packages, which are attractive to youngsters.
Oakland County and several communities in Wayne County have enacted emergency ordinances banning the sale of synthetic drugs and the state legislature also is working on a state law.
At the June 5 meeting of the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees, Public Safety Director Carl McClanahan said he, too, is working on an emergency ordinance to ban the sale of the substances in the township.
The federal government is working on a ban of fake marijuana and “bath salts”.
In March, Sumpter Township Police issued a warning about “bath salts” after arresting a man who was high on the substance.
Officer Chaim Kozak was on patrol on Feb. 16 when he saw a man driving in circles in the middle of the Willis/Sumpter Road intersection.
The driver told Officer Kozak that he was lost. He had driven 10 hours from Iowa with a friend because they heard another of the friends was in a hospital in Michigan. He couldn’t remember what happened to the friend he drove in with.
When the driver was taken to the Sumpter Police holding cell, he started acting crazy, stripping himself naked and crawling the walls. Police called an ambulance.
Sumpter Detective John Toth said bath salts, a synthetic drug, was made illegal in Michigan last October due to the efforts of Senator Carl Levin. But, the substance is still legal in some other states, including Iowa.
The driver stayed in the holding cell until he got sober. He told Det. Toth that he used to do methamphetamines, but then decided to switch to bath salts because it is legal in Iowa.
The designer drug bath salts is not Epsom Salts or anything else to put in a bath tub. It is known by different names, including plant food, Ivory Wave, Purple Wave, Vanilla Sky, and Bliss.
“It’s really horrible,” Toth said. “You get really bad reactions.”
Toth said on Tuesday that recently he has seen clips on You Tube of teens who have filmed themselves after using these substances.
“I can’t believe they are doing that,” Toth said, referring to teens recording their bad reactions to the drugs.
“They call it synthetic marijuana, but the results are nothing like marijuana,” Toth said, adding the reactions are more psychopathic.