São Paulo — Traffickers are using horse anesthetics and anabolic steroids to produce a chemical cocktail that is sold as if it were “synthetic marijuana”, known as drug K, which is more potent than natural marijuana.
The São Paulo Civil Police seized, earlier this month, a prescription for drug K at a drug sales point in Carapicuíba, in Greater São Paulo. Among dealers and users, they are called k2, k4, k9 or “spice”.
With 12 ingredients and seven steps to prepare the mixture, the three-page list was evaluated by the psychiatrist Wilson Lessa Júnior, at the request of Metrópoles. He is also a professor of Medicine at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) and a member of the Brazilian Medical Association of Endocannabinology.
One of the characteristic reactions to K drugs, also known as “spice” among users, is the so-called “zombie effect” (see below). Because of them, the First Command of the Capital faction (PCC) even banned its consumption in the Cracolândia region, in the center of São Paulo.
According to the expert, this effect is caused by ketamine for veterinary use, an anesthetic contained in the prescription seized by the police from drug dealers in Greater São Paulo.
In addition to the anesthetic, he highlighted the presence of fentanyl, an opioid used to combat pain and, together with other substances, also as an anesthetic. Outside the hospital environment, their use can be fatal.
“These substances are even used in surgical centers, demanding a whole safety protocol, used rationally within the hospital environment, not as a drug of abuse. We have many opioid receptors in the brainstem, if they are occupied, the person can have a cardiorespiratory arrest. In surgical environments, there is machinery that will make the person breathe. In one surgery, the substances are useful and safe, but in another situation, it is certain death.”warns Wilson Lessa.
The opioid that appears in the drug dealers’ prescription also contributes to causing high dependence, a constant among users of K drugs, who consume the narcotic uninterruptedly, sold at low prices.
The resulting mixture of ingredients, including sulfuric acid, is sprayed onto tobacco, or even old marijuana, and sold as a synthetic cannabinoid, even though there is no indication of the presence of this type of molecule in the composition.
“I believe they do this to give the user a false idea of security. If they told the truth, that they are selling a life-threatening opioid, they might have more difficulty selling it”says the expert.
He also explains that the person who developed the recipe seized from the dealers has some notions of chemistry, due to the quantities of items suggested, in addition to diversity, as some of them help to fix the drug when sprayed and, others, to counteract any discomfort. caused by consumption.
“It just doesn’t mean they’re doing a safe thing for other people. Both this recipe with opioid and horse anesthetic, and a synthetic cannabinoid in fact, are dangerous, it is impossible to measure which is more.”
K drug prescription was seized with drug dealers in Greater SP
Grandmother suffers from grandson addiction
Housewife Geralda Pereira dos Santos, 60 years old, witnesses the daily decline of her grandson, João Vitor Santos Silva, 19, since he started consuming K drugs.
The boy had lived with his grandmother since childhood, in the Sé region, in the center of the capital of São Paulo, and was admitted in early April to a rehabilitation clinic, in the São Roque region, in the interior of São Paulo.
He fled the scene about ten days later, and was found after a week, approximately, in the house of a considerate grandfather, in the south zone of São Paulo.
Dona Geralda shared with the reporter her feeling of impotence in not being able to help her grandson.
“He even says he wants to stop smoking that crap, but he can’t. I said that if I can, I’ll go to hospital with him, so that he can overcome withdrawal, which I know is very difficult.”
She has taken care of João Vitor since his mother “went out into the world”, as a result of chemical dependency. This same condition, according to her, would have killed the young man’s father.
João, as reported to Dona Geralda by the boy’s considerate grandfather, currently limits his routine to smoking the drug K, eating and sleeping. “That’s when he doesn’t throw up in the middle of it all. He just goes out to get more of that drug. Then he stays around the house like a zombie.”
From jail to the street
The first record of apprehension of the so-called “synthetic marijuana” in São Paulo took place in 2017, at the Presidente Bernardes Penitentiary, in the interior of São Paulo. In prison, the drug is called k4 and is sprayed onto sheets of paper or photographs.
With the popularization in the prison system and increased production – carried out in clandestine laboratories and assisted by professional chemists -, the drug began to become more present in seizures made by the police, starting in 2021.
“Every user not only wants the marijuana-like sensation, he wants to keep up the smoking habit. With that in mind, to make it more like marijuana, dealers began to spray the liquid on a type of tobacco. The user has the feeling most similar to smoking a joint”, explained the delegate Fernando Santiago, from the State Department for the Prevention and Repression of Narcotic Drugs (Denarc).
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