Florida tokers inadvertently smoked rat poison; 52 sickened, 4 dead
Enlarge / A man holds a K2 cigarette in an area that previously witnessed an explosion in the use of synthetic marijuana, in East Harlem on August 31, 2015, in New York City. (credit: Getty | Spencer Platt)
Just hours before President Biden unveiled a major effort to reform federal marijuana laws Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report highlighting some of the collateral damage of harshly criminalizing the relatively safe drug.
The report documented a mass poisoning from alternative marijuana products tainted with rat poison. The event-which severely sickened 52, killing four-isn't the first or even the largest of such poisonings. In 2018, rat poison-laced fake products sickened nearly 200 in a multi-state rash of poisonings that also left four dead.
In the most recent cluster, health officials in Florida first began noting the cases in December of last year. And, based on the 2018 outbreak, they quickly linked the illnesses to synthetic cannabinoids (aka spice, K2, synthetic marijuana, or fake weed).