Inside Spike City In 2015, The New York Times exposed Syracuse’s deadly synthetic marijuana epidemic. Three years later, a summer of disturbing overdoses reveals the city’s ongoing struggle with marijuana’s cheaper cousin. By Randy Plavajka : Illustration by Emily Lundin
It was three in the morning when Gene Barfield felt his heart stop beating. He heard a woman call out, asking if he was okay. But Barfield could not move or answer; he was seemingly paralyzed. At 37 years old, Barfield wondered if he would ever get to see his young son again, or if he would die here on his back, in a dark park in Syracuse, New York. “I had to beg God to let me have a second chance,” Barfield says, now standing at the same spot where he nearly died three days earlier. He fixes his eyes on the patch of grass where he wrestled for his life with one of the most dangerous drugs currently available in the Syracuse community. Synthetic marijuana, otherwise known as spike, spice, or K2, is a mix of man-made chemicals marketed as “fake weed.” If you’ve ever rolled up the real stuff, (we see you, Jerks), you’d know weed comes in solid buds. But this drug typically appears as a combination of herbs, spices and toxic chemicals, ultimately spilling out of its plastic baggy like green potpourri. It’s hardly a stealthy imitation of Mary Jane herself. But despite this visual tip-off, there is no way to properly regulate the drug whatsoever, meaning smoking it could lead to a slew of unpredictable side effects. The high from K2 is unlike the high from marijuana, according to Dr.
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David Mason, medical director of emergency and urgent care services at Crouse Hospital. When to comes to sativa, indica, and hybrids, people who smoke real marijuana know what to expect from the different strains. Indica typically relaxes the user, while sativa provides a more energizing experience. Hybrid strains of weed will land a user somewhere in the middle of those two states; but it will not land them in the hospital like smoking spike might. "Using spike is like playing Russian roulette,” Mason says. “It is just such a gamble; you never know what you’re going to get." The chemicals in the mix vary from brand to brand of the drug, and there’s no true recipe. When the government outlaws certain chemicals to hinder spike’s production, manufacturers of the drug tweak the formula slightly to evade the bans. The chemicals, then, become the real mystery factor in the equation. Adjusting the spikemaking process creates an even more potent and dangerous version of the synthetic drug. Mason says using it can result in vomiting and hallucinations, and may cause the user to become belligerent and violent in an instant. Users who smoke too much can overdose if, unbeknownst to them, the formula is altered by toxic proportions without leaving a trace. Syracuse has a grim history with spike. In a New York Times magazine article, the city was