(A) A product commonly referred to as "spice" is sold by local businesses. Spice typically appears as a packaged dried plant product or leaves, and is sold at gas stations, liquor stores, convenience stores, smoke shops and other outlets. While spice sometimes has a label warning against human consumption, that is its intended use. Businesses that sell spice openly solicit the product by claiming that, when smoked, spice causes a marijuana-like high. Spice is a green leafy product sprayed with synthetic substances that mimic the effects of marijuana when smoked. Spice is marketed under numerous brand names, including Spice, Spice Silver, Spice Gold, Spice Diamond, Spice Tropical Synergy, Spice Arctic Synergy, Spice Gold Spirit, PEP Spice, PEPpourri, K2, Genie, Yucatan Fire, Dream, Ex-ses, Blaze, Spike 99, Spark, Fusion, Magma, Hard Core, and Deliverance, as well as other names.
(B) The use of substituted cathinones, commonly called "bath salts", has significantly increased throughout the United States and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control Mephedrone, Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), Methylone, and other chemical compounds found in "bath salts" finding that ingestion of these substances can cause serious injury and death. The City Council also finds that death and serious injury can be caused by bath salts.
(C) Spice and bath salts are synthetic intoxicants that endanger the public. While distribution of these products is a violation of state law, the available penalties do not appear to adequately deter vendors because the profitability from the sale of these products may outweigh the risks associated with prosecution. Manufacturers and vendors of synthetic intoxicants change the names, labeling, or chemical composition of the products to avoid prosecution. Consumers, including minors, quickly learn the name of the new mock substance by word of mouth or on the internet. Businesses that distribute synthetic intoxicants create a public nuisance in the city as defined by state law and city ordinances.
(D) Emergency room physicians report that users of these products experience serious side effects, including convulsions, anxiety, dangerously elevated heart rates, increased blood pressure, vomiting, and disorientation. According to February 8, 2012 data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, in one year there has been a greater than two-fold increase in the number of calls about exposure to synthetic intoxicants.
(E) Field testing technology is inadequate in many cases and the products being sold to the public have to be seized from the vendor and lab tested. Lab testing is costly and time consuming. If a particular brand name product is determined to be an illegal substance, that substance will often be repackaged or relabeled by the time the police return to the business. This subterfuge wastes police resources and further endangers the public.
(F) Synthetic intoxicants tend to avoid drug testing methods used to determine whether a person has consumed a controlled substance. Some of the most dangerous consumers, those prohibited from consumption of illicit drugs or alcohol by court orders or terms of probation, gravitate toward these products because they are difficult to detect or undetectable.
(G) Synthetic intoxicants endanger the health and safety of the community. This ordinance is a remedial ordinance promulgated pursuant to the city's home rule authority.