E-mail
PrintDear Reader,
It was a weird week for technology news. Or should I say health news?
- Tom Warhover is the executive editor of the Missourian. Contact him by e-mail at warhovert@missouri.edu or by phone at (573) 882-5734.
More likely, I should categorize the following as political news.
Smokin’ news.
Columbia by law is smoke-free in restaurants and bars.
We Missourian readers learned this week that we could light up again in Columbia restaurants by taking a pull on an “e-cigarette.”
It gives addicts a nicotine dose without an actual fire, or smoke, or even tobacco.
Or we could ingest the real thing at the new hookah lounge downtown.
The lounge’s primary business is tobacco, and so lighting those water pipes is just fine.
Then there's the story of fake — but legal — pot.
Sometimes known as K2, fake pot continues to generate its own publicity through the continuing efforts of the General Assembly (and the journalists who cover it).
Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, has filed a bill to ban synthetic cannabinoids. I had never heard of such a thing before his campaign against the stuff, but apparently it can get a person stoned.
I know this because Jeremy Essig described the process of obtaining and smoking fake pot in a first person piece. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend the column. I found out what it cost, where I could get it, and what it would do (at least to Jeremy).
It left me feeling more informed than Sen. Schaefer’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Missourian story said Schaefer testified that adolescents were showing up at hospitals after K2 sessions, and that there were people driving while stoned on the legal substance.
I was skeptical. Where did Schaefer get his information?
Later, the Missourian ran a piece quoting our local police spokeswoman and an MU health official; neither had seen much evidence of K2 as a growing issue.
So is it a problem here? I’m not sure what to believe.
The story also quoted at length a scientist at a crime lab in Mission, Kan., who said K2 is bad stuff: more potent than marijuana and addictive, and resulting in hospitalizations in several cities across the country.
Convincing? Well…
It’s one guy, Jeremiah Morris, making these claims, from a lab I know nothing about. He may be the premier expert, for all I know.
But I don’t.
More journalism needs to be done. More debate in the General Assembly will be done.
Show Me the Errors 
Comments
Am I missing something? Aren't you a newspaper? Don't you have lots of MU J-school folks at your disposal? So why aren't those budding investigative journalists doing some research on this topic and publishing a fact-filled article?
You're right. I am a newspaper. (Well, not really, but I work for one.) I have lots of reporters. I want them to do more on the K2 issue.
Perhaps I was too subtle, eh? The Missourian needs to provide more light on this issue.
If there can be "near beer" why not fake pot? I believe that pot used for medical reasons is not bad. I have never heard of anyone overdosing on it or dying. It is a plant and nothing is added to it as other drugs are cut with all kinds of crap. If it helps cancer patients eat or take their pain away I say give it to them. I live in Wentzville and have not heard of any kids here going to the emergency room for the fake pot. I will keep an ear open and report back with any findings. Thanks for listening to my opinion.