Alex Pedersen

On Thursday, Feb. 4, police officers in Lawrence raided an herb store named Sacred Journeys and took, among other herbs, their stock of a drug known primarily as K2.

For those of you who don’t know, K2 is a brand name for herbs sprayed with JW-018 and JW-073, two synthetic cannabinoids, which is sold as a potpourri or incense, according to an article from Lawrence Journal-World. However, it is usually inhaled into the lungs via zig-zigs, bong, or the tried and true glass pipe.

This is because, as you may have guessed from the word, “cannabinoids,” these chemicals give a feeling similar to that given by marijuana. The effects have a shorter duration, but people have found that they can smoke K2 and pass urine tests, hence the craze. Some other brand names are Spice, Genie and Zohai, according to one Associated Press article.

Yes, I just said Associated Press. Though, according to another Associated Press article, the legislation to ban K2 was passed by the Kansas Senate and House of Representatives and it is apparently a big enough story for even AP to cover.

To me, this whole banning of K2 reinforces the idea that the majority of Kansas, and Emporia as well, is considerably less open-minded than they should be.

If K2 even appeared at a store in Emporia, I have no doubt it would be run out of town within hours of the public hearing that it is somewhat like weed.

You should realize that K2 is not something that matters to me. I may have indulged in it once or twice when it was legal, but I hold no loyalty to it. I am more concerned with that fact that Kansas legislators will criminalize a drug simply because it’s a drug.

For example, Kansas Sen. Jim Barnett, a republican from here in Emporia, said of K2: “It’s an imitation drug, but it’s still a drug,” as quoted in another LJ-World article.

In truth, they have made it illegal because its high is like ganja’s. Their prejudice against herb apparently includes anything that looks, smells, tastes and especially gets you high like herb.

My belief is that the best solution for K2, as with each and every drug, is to legalize and regulate it. By making any illegal, legislators are doing several things. They are gaining some money for probation and court costs, but they are losing far more by paying for incarceration and by missing out on the taxation they could place on it, were it regulated.

And, perhaps most notably, they are strengthening the black market which they are trying to take down. I met a girl a few weeks ago in Lawrence who told me that she had driven to Missouri that day to buy K2 because she was in some sort of trouble with the law and was required to take urinary analysis.

I can only think that if this same thing were to happen to a chemical that was similar to alcohol and not cannabis, the story would play out much differently.

Let’s hope that eventually Kansas and Emporia will grow beyond their small-town paranoia and take things as they are, not as they are scared they may be.

Why can’t we have hugs and drugs?

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