Outbreak of kidney failure in Wyoming linked to Spice | Reuters.
Three young people have been hospitalized with kidney failure and a dozen others sickened in Casper, Wyoming, in an outbreak linked to a batch of the designer drug Spice, authorities said on Friday.
State medical officials said the cause of the outbreak was under investigation but reported that Casper residents who have sought medical treatment for vomiting and back pain had recently smoked or ingested a chemical-laced herbal product packaged as “blueberry spice.”
The illnesses reported by physicians and hospitals in the east central Wyoming city beginning on Sunday had added up to a cluster that alarmed health officials by the end of the week.
“At this point, we are viewing use of this drug as a potentially life-threatening situation,” Tracy Murphy, Wyoming state epidemiologist, said in a statement.
Those who have fallen ill range in age from late teens to early 20s and all used blueberry-flavored spice, said Bob Herrington, director of the Casper-Natrona County Health Department.
Warnings about the product and a list of symptoms associated with kidney malfunctions have been posted in health departments, clinics and medical facilities across the state even as scientists at the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory scrambled to ferret out the compounds in the batch suspected in the incident.
Harrington said the outbreak was causing concern among health and law enforcement officials in the city of 55,000 residents.
“Based on our information from the doctors, the three people with kidney failure are in pretty serious shape; they’re very sick,” he said.
Spice is sometimes sold as “legal marijuana” because of the high that users experience from plant material coated with chemicals that claim to mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug policy experts said use of spice has been on the rise since the DEA in 2009 tracked skyrocketing numbers of reports about the products from poison control centers, hospitals and local law enforcement agencies.
The DEA extended a ban on Thursday on five chemicals that make some spice mixtures illegal. Yet authorities have struggled to keep pace with changes in the chemical make-up of the designer drugs, which sometimes skirt newly enacted laws.
Bans on spice are in place in several states, including Wyoming. But with manufacturers capable of rapidly adjusting recipes, states like Idaho have made illegal whole groups of compounds rather than specific chemicals.
“Spice is a pretty lucrative business and the marketing is to youth,” said Caitlin Zak, program manager for the Idaho Office of Drug Policy.
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wow, that’s wild, betty. You know, I get out and about, but sometimes I feel as though I live a sheltered life.
Same here, I was surprised to hear about it, especially up in this neck of the woods.
The young people do not understand what these toxins do to there body. The sad part is that many of these new drugs are not illegal. They have sold spice through tobacco shops her for years. No good will ever come of using drugs. Your body needs to be treated like a temple with the respect it deserves. It is the only body one has and unnatural chemicals were never meant to be put in it.
I had never even heard of “Spice”.
Now I am finding out it is being sold in tobacco shops? 
How sad.
It is very common. However, since a rash of deaths they are banning it. But every time they do a new formula comes out.The problem is that it is not illegal only some of the chemicals are illegal so they have to prove what is in it. More taxpayers dollars to test each new formula s it doesn’t take much to alter the formula. It’s been considered legal by young people for that reason so they get it at the tobacco shops and think they are okay. Stronger legislature has to be past on these chemically produced drugs but there is just enough natural legal products in them to make it hard.
I think it is amazing. Selling it in a tobacco store. WOW! People will always find a way to get around something, won’t they?
I also can’t believe I have never heard of it before. My sheltered life I guess. 
I only know of it from working with Teenagers. Once I heard of it I checked into it. It is very dangerous. We need to protect the youth of today. They aren’t mature enough to do it themselves.
Oh! That explains it. No, they are not mature enough to protect themselves. Unfortunately. Don’t remember being that way myself when I was young. Immortal and all that.
Times have changed since we grew up. The young people now challenge each other to try drugs and put constant pressure on them. Parents even offer drugs to their children’s friends. It’s an ongoing battle ground.
Times sure have changed, LOTS! Glad I am not a kid now. A family member, who lives elsewhere, is struggling right now because his daughter is going out with someone whose mother lets HIM grow pot. Family member is not very happy about it at all, don’t blame him, I wouldn’t be either.
I went into places where no parent dared to tread and drug my son out sometimes by the hair. Family member needs to stop the relationship otherwise they will think they condone those values.
I am sorry to hear that.
My dad was not one who would have been afraid to do that either, and kick butt all the way out the door. 
You gotta be like that I think.
Peer pressure is tough these days and a parent needs to do whatever it takes to keep their kids safe. My son is 38 years old doing fine and living with me because of the economy. He’s out looking for work. But whenever I come around his friend’s still whisper “There’s Shawn’s mom”. I am known by my reputation for interrupting the young people and making them tow the line. I never cared whose kid it was. LOL some of that comes from teaching teenagers. Life was tough but at least my boys are alive and I lived through it all. They are both good young men. It’s just sad that life has to be so tough these days.
It is, isn’t it? Rougher and rougher on kids every day. I am very glad to hear your son is doing ok. The economy is horrible, isn’t it?
Heheheheh You have a “rep” then, huh? LOL You have a rep worth remembering, and whispering about too. 
You have to interrupt sometimes, it is the right, and best, thing to do. Funny, we grew up in homes like that! Parents didn’t hesitate to grab a kid by the ear and pull him/her back in line. We just expected it as kids too! I still do that. That generation I guess. I worry about all the kids in my family. My niece, who will be 14 on the 16th of this month, did something a few weeks ago that had me burning. I couldn’t say anything tho. My sister did tho! I couldn’t because I didn’t “see it” and if I did then it would be known my sister talked about it. So, I kept my mouth shut. It was gone by then, so I couldn’t “legitimately” have seen it, if that makes sense. I won’t say, cuz don’t want my niece, or any family member for that matter, accidentally find out about it here. More than anything it compromised her own safety. I was amazed, especially after we all had watched a movie about bullying and such on social sites, that she even did what she did. Sometimes I wonder where their brains are, if they have any, and if they make any connections at all in their lives with the things they see and hear about then do in their own lives. 
interesting
I thought so too, surprised me too, had never heard of it.