The Drugs May Be Synthetic but the Consequences are not:Analysis of Synthetic Cannabinoid User Accounts

ABSTRACT

Synthetic cannabinoids are the second most used illicit substance among U.S. adolescents. Despite their prevalence and dangers, we know little about the characteristics associated with use. While clinical samples have shed some light on how synthetic cannabinoids differ from marijuana, they have not explored career trajectories of synthetic cannabinoid users. We analyze online forum posts about people’s synthetic cannabinoid use to understand more about these novel psychoactive drugs and the drug careers of those who use.

Notes

¹ While Spice is a brand name for a type of synthetic cannabinoid, and thus always capitalized by the authors, users were not consistent with capitalization in their posts.

² In order to only examine one post per individual, we excluded any post authored by an identifier that had already been used.

³ This sample frame is the length of time it took the authors to reach saturation.

⁴ The accounts here are categorized by the dates they were posted.

⁵ An adult store refers to a business that sells items of a sexual nature. These stores were mentioned by participants as places to purchase synthetic cannabinoids as well.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Angulski

Kate Angulski is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University. Her research interests are international and comparative criminal justice and drug use and she has published on these areas in both domestic and international outlets.

Jurg Gerber is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and Director of International Initiatives in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. For the last 17 years he has also served as Professeur Invité at the University of Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) and he spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at Kaliningrad State University, in Kaliningrad, Russia. Research interests include white-collar crime, criminology, drug control policy, and international criminal justice issues.