It looks like the never ending attempt to get high has brought new suppliers to the market. Government official pretend to be outraged.

There may be nothing like the real thing, but some industrious marijuana users have seized on an obscure but easily accessible substance that mimics the drug's effects on the brain -- creating a popular trade in legal dope that has stymied law enforcement authorities.

The users are buying a product known as K2 -- or "Spice," Genie" and "Zohai" -- that is commonly sold in head shops as incense. Produced in China and Korea, the mixture of herbs and spices is sprayed with a synthetic compound chemically similar to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Users roll it up in joints or inhale it from pipes, just like the real thing.

Though banned in most of Europe, K2's key ingredients are not regulated in the United States -- a gap that has prompted lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas to consider new legislation.

"This isn't Jerry Garcia's marijuana," said state Rep. Jeff Roorda, a Democrat from the eastern Missouri town of Barnhart. "They've used chemicals to avoid creating something that's already illegal."

Let me see if I get this straight though. They are using chemicals - to avoid - creating an illegal situation. But fortunately our ever vigilant government will fix that by banning the chemicals in order to create an illegal situation. Hardly anything gets by those guys for long.

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius

Cross Posted at Power and Control