Rope a Dope: U.S. Anti-Terrorism Labs Enlisted in the War on "Legal" Synthetic Drugs
Arkansas deploys facilities built to detect chemical and biological weapons to keep tabs on ever-evolving synthetic pot products
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
 A worldwide arms race has erupted between inventive street chemists who  concoct "legal" highs and government officials who wish to regulate and  interdict the proliferation of synthetic cannabis products that can send their users to an emergency room or the morgue. In Arkansas officials view the problem as severe enough that  they have now deployed a network of federally funded laboratories  within their state (in collaboration with state and private  laboratories) to keep tabs on the protean ingenuity of street chemists,  who reformulate these drugs faster than governments can pass regulations  to control them.
A worldwide arms race has erupted between inventive street chemists who  concoct "legal" highs and government officials who wish to regulate and  interdict the proliferation of synthetic cannabis products that can send their users to an emergency room or the morgue. In Arkansas officials view the problem as severe enough that  they have now deployed a network of federally funded laboratories  within their state (in collaboration with state and private  laboratories) to keep tabs on the protean ingenuity of street chemists,  who reformulate these drugs faster than governments can pass regulations  to control them.


 
						


