Anchorage

Anchorage looks to Maine for clues to handle Alaska 'spice' problem

It's been two years since the state of Alaska and the municipality of Anchorage passed laws aimed at banning synthetic marijuana, also known as "Spice." But so far, no one in the Last Frontier has been successfully prosecuted for possessing, using, or selling the designer drug.

A federal task force, led by the Drug Enforcement Agency, raided four Fairbanks-area head shops selling spice in May, but have not charged any of the businesses or their employees with a crime. The feds are suing to seize more than $150,000 in cash, 15 silver bars -- valued at more than $32,000 -- and two handguns found during the raids.

Despite the best efforts of local, state and federal law enforcement, spice is readily available in Alaska's largest city and has even found its way into remote villages. In spring of 2013, Air Force investigators and Anchorage police found 23 stores that sell the drug. The biggest problem with building a case against use of the drug is manufacturers changing the its chemical makeup faster than lawmakers can make such chemical combinations illegal. The result is an increasingly chaotic and potentially dangerous cocktail of chemicals that make up popular varieties of spice.

Anchorage Municipal Prosecutor Cynthia Franklin is fed up with the spice stalemate. Franklin wrote and helped submit a new ordinance to the Anchorage Assembly recently that may finally take the buzz out of local spice sales. Franklin's law mimics a unique approach taken by Bangor, Maine: make synthetic drugs illegal because their packaging and stated intended uses are misleading.

Spice itself is an ever-varying mix of chemicals that is designed to mimic the effects of marijuana and LSD. It is sprayed on plant material and usually sold in half-gram packages, which are often labeled with cartoon characters and sinister-sounding names, like, "Red Eye" "Dead Man" and "Baby Halo." It's is often marketed as potpourri, plant food, and even iPod cleaner. But people don't buy spice to use for the purposes advertised on the packaging.

"They are designed to have an effect on the human body," Franklin said. "They are designed to mimic the effects of substances that are already controlled. They are designed to get you high."

The proposed ordinance would make possession or sale of spice a $500 minor offense per package. Minor offenses are civil penalties -- and the city would be able to go after a person's Alaska Permanent Fund dividend and other assets to get the money from offenders. Franklin said the proposed Anchorage ordinance was created after consulting with city prosecutors in Bangor.

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Bangor -- the largest city in predominantly rural central Maine, with about 32,000 inhabitants -- passed a law in May that makes spice illegal, not because of what is inside the package, but because of how it is advertised and what its real intended use is. Bangor officials said the law had an impact even before it went into effect.

"The owner of the head shop (Heady's) voluntarily agreed to stop selling the drug while we were discussing the proposed law," Bangor City Solicitor Norm Heitmann said.

Heitmann said that since the law's passage, Bangor remains without a local supply of spice and other synthetic drugs. Three other shops quit selling the drugs shortly after the law went into effect.

But will Bangor's approach work in Anchorage?

Joshua Decker, the director of the the Alaska arm of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he believes the ordinance as currently proposed is too broadly written. Decker worries the law could be applied to other consumer goods, like coffee.

"If the municipality wants to get rid of spice, it should be done in a way that is intelligent and targeted and won't be thrown out by a judge," Decker said.

A federal law known as the "Analog Act" makes illegal any substance that mimics already-illegal drugs. It has been used with some success throughout the country. But that DEA led-raid in Fairbanks last spring of four shops that sold the drug has not yet yielded any charges, only the seizure of cash and silver, found at one of the stores. A DEA spokesperson would not comment on any current investigations -- if any exist -- of Anchorage-area spice vendors.

While spice is readily available over the internet, the drug's availability in Anchorage has become a target of local police and prosecutors, who want to avoid any potential problems with already outdated laws by finally criminalizing all synthetic drugs with one umbrella ordinance.

"All the approaches to date have been to approach this product like a traditional controlled substance, which is as a street drug," Franklin said. They are traded underhanded in dark corners and dark alleys, but synthetic drugs are not. They are sold with a wink and a nod at many local stores."

Spice has been blamed for the death of a puppy in the Matanuska Valley, and the rape of an 18-year-old woman in Anchorage's Town Square Park. It has sent numerous people to local hospitals and has even been tied to numerous deaths across the U.S. Franklin highlighted the local problem at a local meeting of the city's Public Safety Committee.

"The mayor got a letter from a concerned citizen this fall," Franklin said. "The citizen said she overheard a local head shop owner bragging that she makes more than a million dollars a year selling spice to kids."

Contact Sean Doogan at sean(at)alaskadispatch.com

Sean Doogan

Sean Doogan is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News.

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