{"id":108843,"date":"2016-08-26T17:30:23","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/k2-drug-users-playing-a-game-of-russian-roulette\/"},"modified":"2016-08-26T17:30:23","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T17:30:23","slug":"k2-drug-users-playing-a-game-of-russian-roulette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/k2-drug-users-playing-a-game-of-russian-roulette\/","title":{"rendered":"K2 drug users &quot;playing a game of Russian roulette&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"loc\">AUSTIN, Texas<\/span> \u2014\u00a0Austin-Travis County EMS have treated 69 people for\u00a0<span class=\"link\">K2<\/a><\/span>\u00a0since Wednesday night, CBS Austin affiliate KEYE reports<\/a>?. Seventeen of those people were treated overnight Thursday to Friday for dangerous reactions to the drug?, which is also known as <span class=\"link\">synthetic marijuana or Spice<\/a><\/span>?.<\/p>\n<p>Overnight, Austin Police, Fire and EMS set up a command post downtown near the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. As of around 3:30 a.m., most emergency personnel had left the area.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday, ATCEMS was treating the area like a mass-casualty scene. They brought in extra ambulances and took patients to different hospitals to prevent overwhelming a single medical center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is like playing a game of Russian roulette,\u201d ATCEMS Commander Mike Benavides said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t know what\u2019s in these products, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re ingesting or inhaling and so this could be a lethal combination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>ATCEMS told CBS Austin,\u00a0K2 affects the same brain receptors as marijuana, but does not leave the body the same way that cannabis does. K2 manufacturers and dealers often <span class=\"link\">spray it with different chemicals<\/a><\/span>? to intensify the high, meaning it\u2019s difficult to know what exactly caused the bad reactions.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"link\">Synthetic marijuana overdose turns dozens into \u201czombies\u201d in NYC<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"link\">Synthetic marijuana overdose turns dozens into \u201czombies\u201d in NYC<\/a><\/span>?<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"link\">Why does synthetic marijuana make people act like \u201czombies\u201d?<\/a><\/span>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Benavides said patients treated Thursday were having seizures, were unconscious and some were combative. He warned K2 use can be especially dangerous in the August heat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the signs and symptoms of <span class=\"link\">K2 utilization<\/a><\/span>? is hyperthermia which means the body core temperature increases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen you put them out, if they\u2019re utilizing out in this air, in these ambient conditions where it\u2019s already hot then obviously that too can be lethal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Austin Police have detained three people in connection with the K2 incidents. They could be charged with possession with intent to distribute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014\u00a0Austin-Travis County EMS have treated 69 people for\u00a0K2\u00a0since Wednesday night, CBS Austin affiliate KEYE reports?. Seventeen of those people were treated overnight Thursday to Friday for dangerous reactions to the drug?, which is also known as synthetic marijuana or Spice?. Overnight, Austin Police, Fire and EMS set up a command post downtown near <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/k2-drug-users-playing-a-game-of-russian-roulette\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}