Professor Chris Pudney is a Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Bath University. His lab develops new analytical technologies based on advances in fundamental theory in Biophysics. One strand is the point-of-care detection of novel psychoactive substances such as synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs; often called 'Spice'). More about his work on Spice in schools can be found here.
Over the last year, there have been over 20 media reports of children ‘collapsing’ in schools in the UK. These articles suggest that there is something in the vapes used by the children that has caused the collapse, perhaps cannabis (THC) or more worryingly a synthetic drug called spice.
Spice is a synthetic drug (a synthetic cannabinoid) that, at least as far as our intelligence understands, is made in laboratories in China. This class of drugs is evolving rapidly, with over 300 different molecules that can be called spice. Originally legal in the UK, legislation in 2016 was brought in to ban these substances. Despite this ban, they are still considered by many to be a kind of synthetic cannabis, which is far from reality. In fact, these drugs bear little resemblance to cannabis and are far more potent and risky.
At Bath, a large collaborative research grouping has been looking into the presence of spice in prisons. We find that spice use is extremely common, driven by factors such as availability, cost and boredom. Spice can have the effect of making time seem to pass by making the person using it feel dissociated; not in their body. Other effects can include aggression, becoming psychotic, seizures and potentially cardiac arrest. Speaking to people who use spice, a common theme emerges; no one who uses spice ‘likes’ the drug. Most people we have surveyed find talk about spice as one of the worst substances they have used both due to the effects on them and the withdrawal. Coupled with the reported rapid onset of addiction, spice is not a drug that would appeal to anyone who is not highly vulnerable. Indeed, spice has been associated with nearly half of non-natural deaths in prisons.
We were motivated to try and understand if spice was actually in schools. It seemed a little far fetched that a drug that we essentially only see in prisons and used by people who can be homeless and use drugs in a dependent way might be present in schools being used by children. We have developed technology for detecting spice and we adapted this to detect spice in sealed vape pens. With this tool in hand, we established a partnership with a UK police force and a school to test what they had seized over the course of a year. The school had a sense they might have THC vapes in the school. What we found was shocking. Not only was there no THC, but there was a very large amount of spice vapes; 25 % of all the seized samples from the year.
We next sampled the schools in the region, and then a different region entirely and then spot-tested schools around the country. We used our portable technology and lab-based-testing similar to that used by police forensics. Of over 500 vapes tested, from the south to the north of England, we found 17 % of all seized vapes from schools had spice in. We found very few THC vapes in all our samples, only 7 in total and these were typically imported products from the USA, where THC is legal in some states. Almost all of the spice vapes were a type that could be refilled, with very few being from ‘single use’ vapes that you can buy in most shops.
So what does this mean?
Spice is common in schools, at least in England. We now have a reason why children might be collapsing, having cardiac arrests and ending up in intensive care after using vapes in school. We don’t think that school children are intentionally buying ‘spice vapes’, but instead are being sold ‘cannabis’ vapes. THC, a component of cannabis, is very expensive (~£20), whereas spice is cheap; ~£3 to fill a whole vape. Faced with this kind of difference in cost, it is a logical choice facing drug dealers and people who buy these vapes, but one which makes using these vapes a kind of Russian roulette.
Solving this problem is possible.
Education is the most effective tool to combat the harm that drugs do and particularly to children. Our research can now let teachers and parents let children know two things.
- If someone offers you a ‘cannabis’ vape, it is very likely to be spice, which is a very high risk drug, mostly found in prisons.
- If you want to try one of these vapes, make sure you are with someone who can help you and stop using it if you feel unwell and get help.
As we go forward, our research team at Bath, and collaborators across the UK are committed to support the understanding of this issue, both in terms of understanding what the most effective harm reduction advice is in a school setting, where spice vapes are coming from and providing novel technology for their detection. Already we have two prototype devices for detecting these vapes with different police forces and we hope to release more over the summer in time for the new school year.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.
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