Cedar Rapids looks to new law to take on synthetic drugs

CEDAR RAPIDS - Police Chief Wayne Jerman says the city doesn't want to see a second death or more hospital committals and overdoses as a result of the sale and use of synthetic drugs.

As a result, Jerman has proposed a new city ordinance that will give the Police Department wider latitude to file criminal charges and to seek civil penalties against sellers, suppliers, customers and users of synthetic drugs that are sold under the guise of incense, bath salts or some other fiction.

'There is a problem and it's a fast-growing problem, not just here in the city of Cedar Rapids, but also nationally,” the police chief said on Tuesday.

Amanda Grieder, coordinator of the SAFE-CR nuisance abatement program, on Tuesday said police officers answered 119 calls involving synthetic drugs in 2013. Seven resulted in a commitment to hospital or other program, five were overdoses and one ended in a death.

'We don't want to see anybody else die or committed to a hospital or health facility by these substances,” Jerman said.

The city of Cedar Rapids's initiative comes as the federal officials in the last year have raided storefronts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Waterloo as part of a national crackdown by the federal government on the sale of synthetic drugs.

Two Eastern Iowans have been convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, two are facing trial now and a fifth has just been charged.

But local government can take steps, too, Jerman said.

Charlie and Meow Meow

The ever-changing formulations of the chemicals that are added to plant material or 'bath salts” to be smoked, snorted or ingested have been known to flummox law enforcement officers because formulations written into the law as illegal often haven't kept up with the changes in the chemicals.

The city's new ordinance is designed to get a hand up on the cat-and-mouse game of reformulation by identifying synthetic drugs by the way they are advertised, repackaged or misbranded and by the lack of manufacturer's information on the package or the absence of adequate directions for use or warnings against use.

Verbal representations at the time of sale and prices higher than what one would expect to pay for incense or bath salts also will help officers identify a product as a synthetic drug, Grieder said.

'Officers won't need to send it to the state lab to determine if it is an illicit synthetic drug,” she said.

The proposed city ordinance comes with a long list of product names that the ordinance would prohibit. But the ordinance does not limit its reach to those products with names as varied as K2, K3, Spice 99, Galaxy Gold, Cloud 9 Daylights, Drone, Charlie and Meow Meow.

Under the city's proposal, violators can be charged with a simple misdemeanor and/or ordered to pay a civil fee of up to $750 while police officers will be entitled to seize the illicit merchandise.

Jerman and Grieder said a particularly troubling aspect of synthetic drugs is that users don't have any assurances of what chemicals or how much of them have been added to plant material or powders that then are falsely marketed as incense, bath salts or some other product.

'What we do know is that police officers are encountering people who are under the influence of these substances and their behaviors go from bizarre to extremely violent, and they inflict injury on themselves, on others and on officers,” Jerman said. '…

Those who ingest these synthetic drugs really have no idea what they are putting in their bodies.”

Grieder said the proposed Cedar Rapids ordinance is modeled after those from cities in Florida, Illinois and California.

The City Council's Public Safety and Youth Services Committee has approved the proposed new synthetic drug ordinance and has moved it on for the full council's consideration. The council will hold a public hearing on the measure Aug. 26.

City Council member Susie Weinacht, a committee member, said the proposed ordinance is a step in the right direction to take on an illicit drugs that can produce a high 'exponentially larger” than standard marijuana along with paranoia and an assortment of other worrisome side effects.

Justin Shields, the committee chairman, said 'a lot of kids are getting hurt.”

'It's been evident for the last few years that there's so much of this stuff and so many kids being exposed to what they can buy handily without hardly any repercussions to the people selling it,” Shields said.

'We just need to step up and do everything we possibly can to get it under control.”