Beware of the Smiles

LITTLE ROCK — REMEMBER a few years back when you had to be told what K-2 was? Some of us more naive types had fond flashbacks to our childhood, when K-2 footballs flew over the school’s recess grounds. Man, you could really hum those things for miles and miles.

Then 2012 came around, or maybe 2002, and with it reality. No, this time K-2 wasn’t a small pee-wee league football. It was a drug. What the kids call Fake Weed. And if your kids know about it, so should you.

Same thing happened to many of us when meth came around. What in the world? Did you say math, as in algebra? No doubt some of our more seasoned readers could tell stories about that funny-smelling cigarette that some of the Beatniks passed around back in the 1950s.

If it’s new, the kids are going to beat you to it. Just as kids are going to become experts on how to use the latest i-[whatever] before the rest of us see the first commercial for it. Kids will also know about, and maybe even see and smell, the latest drug before their parents ever hear about it.

An article in LiveScience says the experts are calling the newest designer drug 2C-I. The kids call it Smiles.

It’s a hallucinogen, and a nasty one. It can be taken either as a powder or tablet. And a user can mix it with something edible, like chocolate or candy, before eating it. The drug can induce hallucinations, or make the user giddy. Or very relaxed.

Or it could kill him dead.

“There is hardly any research at all in the scientific literature on these things,” said Matthew Johnson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. “Even in animals. Much less any sort of formal safety evaluation in humans.”

All of which sounds like something you don’t want your kids messing with.

Reports say that Smiles is related to amphetamines. Or at least Smiles is related to drugs that are related to amphetamines. These designer drugs are hard to keep up with, even for those fighting their spread. This one has been identified as the culprit in the death of at least two teenagers in this country. So far.

When the drug doesn’t work as intended, it can lead to bad trips, or increased heart rates and arrhythmias—which can be fatal. One teen in North Dakota began hyperventilating and hitting his head on the ground after taking Smiles. He was dead hours later, and a friend of his was charged with manslaughter.

File this under it’s better to be forewarned, etc. If you hear one of the kids in the other room talking about getting a bunch of smiles at school, more attention should be paid. There are smiles and there are Smiles. One can be just what we all need—the other could involve a gurney.