Kitsap County prosecutors appear to have filed the first ever charges in the county against someone for possessing synthetic marijuana. “Spice,” “K2” and other so-called “synthetic cannabinoids” were officially banned by the state’s pharmacy board in November 2010.
Possession of substances known as “bath salts,” “plant food,” “Ivory Wave,” and “White Lightning,” are now felonies and can be punishable by up to five years in prison.
(Other authorities, I should add — the Navy, for instance — had already banned Spice.)
In early May, it appears the first person in Kitsap — a 24-year-old Poulsbo man — was charged with having Space.
“Not positive Josh,” wrote back Kevin Kelly, the deputy prosecutor who charged the case, “But it is the first time I have charged it so I think chances are good that it is.”
Here’s what happened: Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies were called to the Suquamish Clearwater Casino in the early morning hours of May 5 for the report of a man seen using a narcotics pipe. Surveillance video showed him using the pipe, which was glass and “multi-colored,” sheriff’s reports of the incident said.
While he denied having a pipe at first, a deputy saw a something in his front left pocket “weighing it down.”
The deputy said it didn’t smell like marijuana and asked the man what kind of tobacco he smoked.
“He thought for a minute and then told me that it was not tobacco but that it was ‘spice,'” deputies wrote.
In his pocket, deputies found a container that had “quality potpourri,” written on it. It was cotton candy flavor.
The man said he’d gotten it at a store in Poulsbo. He was arrested.
The deputy who drove him to jail said the Poulsbo man “was asking the same questions over and over again.”
“He seemed to be very impaired and altered,” the deputy wrote in his report.
He was booked into the Kitsap County jail for possession of the drug and charged with the same crime the next day by prosecutors.
