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David Davis, a registered nurse who is director of the Emergency Services and Trauma Unit for Genesis, said personnel at the hospitals have seen several cases relating to k2 incense, synthetic marijuana an bath salts in the past few months — the latest being Thursday night.

“Patients are coming in agitated, vomiting, in seizures, paranoid or having hallucinations,” Davis said. “The reactions are similar to those when ingesting the bath salts that seem to be on the rise.”

Bath salts have caused a number of medical problems in the community, to the point that Frazeysburg passed an ordinance banning them this past week. The state also has banned them, but as with synthetic marijuana, the law will take 90 days to go into effect.

Mad Hatter comes in 3-gram, green packages, which are clearly marked “not for human consumption.” The package also states the manufacturer is not responsible for misuse. Yet people are ingesting and smoking the leafy substance that costs about $25 per pack.

Dr. Marcel Casavant, of the Central Ohio Poison Control Center in Columbus, said Ohio and the rest of the nation has seen an increase in people having adverse reactions from ingesting k2 incense.

“It makes people crazy,” Casavant said. “We’ve seen them come in our emergency rooms agitated, their heart rates are spinning, they’re vomiting, having hallucinations. Sometimes it takes sedatives to calm them down.”

Casavant also knows of one case in which a patient was in a coma.

“We’ve not had any reported deaths, but I would say that synthetic marijuana products may kill you,” Casavant said.

In 2010, there were 2,874 calls nationally to poison control centers related to synthetic marijuana, and in Ohio, there were 36 cases. Through the end of May 2011, there were 2,052 cases reported nationally and 26 in Ohio.

“We did see a decrease in cases at the end of last year, but they jumped again in the past couple of months,” Casavant said. “This is a completely different substance than marijuana. We don’t see the types of effects from marijuana as we’re seeing with this product. It’s a very, very serious and dangerous product.”

HARRISON — Three young men were hospitalized Thursday night after, police said, they apparently overdosed on a synthetic incense similar to “K2 incense“, which is marketed on the Internet as a legal way to get high.

“Without question, lawmakers are going to have to consider declaring some of these things as illegal substances,” Harrison police Chief Anthony Marraccini said Friday. “There are so many of them being marketed on the Internet that you can’t name them all.”

Police were called to a private home about 10:30 p.m. on a report of two young men having convulsions that appeared to have been induced by narcotics. Investigators discovered a white, grainy substance, believed to be a synthetic compound, that had been ingested by three 18- to 20-year-old men, who they did not identify.

All three were taken to White Plains Hospital, where they were treated and released. Marraccini said all appeared to be OK on Friday.

Because the substance is legal, no charges were filed.

Police were trying to determine the name of the substance and find out where the men got it.

Marraccini said it was similar to K2 incense, a synthetic incense that is frequently smoked and can result in hallucinations, seizures and other medical problems. In May, police confiscated a package of K2 from four Harrison students who took the substance to Louis M. Klein Middle School.

That incident occurred a month after three teens in Rockland County were hospitalized with symptoms including dizziness, paralysis and seizures after smoking “Atomic Bomb,” a synthetic incense they bought at the Palisades Center mall.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration recently added substances found in K2 and similar products to its list of banned compounds. Several states have outlawed the incense.

Manufacturers continue to get around the bans, however, by changing ingredients, authorities said.

“The marketing of these synthetic substances or so-called natural herbal substances is enticing children to use them and to assume they are safe,” Marraccini said. “Parents have to be diligent and can’t allow or condone the use of any of these substances, no matter how trivial they may seem.”

A 19-year-old Iron Station woman was rushed to the hospital last month after police say she and a man spent the afternoon smoking a synthetic form of marijuana. This has been a frequent scene across the country, where people overdose and come into panic attack after smoking small amounts of synthetic marijuana.

Recently made illegal in North Carolina, the synthetic marijuana, sold under several names including Spice, K2 incense, Knockout, White Rhino, Flame, Mr. Sticy, Dragon,  was allegedly purchased at a store in Cornelius.

Deputies were called to the home at 5721 E. N.C. 27 on June 24 to investigate a drug overdose and found James Luke Sankowich, 19, and Hannah Elizabeth Thompson impaired from an unknown substance, deputies said.

Sankowich told deputies he had Thompson buy some of the synthetic marijuana from an unnamed Cornelius store and got sick after smoking it.

One of the issues surrounding these synthetic marijuana products like spice and k2 incense, is that there is no even distribution of the chemicals used in these products.  The consumer has no idea how much active product there is per gram.

Unlike marijuana, synthetic marijuana and k2 incense subsitutes can cause one to “overdose”

Emergency officials rushed Thompson to CMC-Lincoln for treatment. Sankowich refused medical help, police said.

The couple was charged with possession of a synthetic cannabinoid, possession of a Schedule VI drug, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, deputies said. They were taken to the Harven A. Crouse Detention Center on a $2,500 bond. Both are scheduled to appear in court July 13.

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