This is messed up.

Growing use of ‘wet’ drug is alarming authorities

It’s known as “wet,” “dip” and “leek,” and if you haven’t heard of it yet, drug experts around New Jersey say you will soon.

A potent blend of marijuana and embalming fluid, the drug combination offers a paralyzing hallucinogenic high that can lead to erratic, if not psychotic, behavior. Doctors, drug counselors and law enforcement officials say that smoking marijuana and embalming fluid can cause brain damage, lung damage and a permanent dulling of the senses.

“There’s the catatonic, lights on but nobody’s home type of thing going on, and then you’re also physically wound up so you can be angry, frustrated or depressed and have an increased propensity for physical violence,” said Special Agent Douglas Collier of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey division.

“This is highly toxic, extremely carcinogenic, and there’s a lot of potential for causing a real health concern,” he said.

Tragic. People will put anything inside their bodies if it promises an escape from reality.

On the one hand, I want to take the same attitude expressed by this person, who left the following comment here:

At least the pre-use of embalming fluid saves expenses in the end.

I say legalize drugs. Hell give it to them for free. Force it on them, even — just to get the inevitable over with and the government can stop taking away the rights of normal people in efforts to save these morons from themselves.

But on the other hand, it’s not that easy. What if the the user is your 12 year old son, who’s a “good kid” but just fell to the pressure of school friends telling him that this high was “cool” and “not that dangerous”?

It used to be that one could stereotype drug addicts by the way they look, where they live, etc. Today, it’s impossible. Ask any cop. They’ll tell you that the victims of this kind of drug abuse come from all walks of life. The demographics cannot be determined.

Can the war on drugs be won?

Raiding crack houses and closing methamphetamine labs is one thing, but when law enforcement has to deal with combating a strange drug mix like “Wet”, stop the paint huffer, or prevent grade school kids from inhaling of substances like Dust-Off, how can anyone be confident that progress is being made?

Perhaps progress is measured one (saved) life at a time?