Citizen Calls on County, as SPICE Problem Surges and Goes to Capitol

During the February 14th Commissioners’ Meeting, Citizen Melinda Cornwell asked the county for help. Cornwell’s public comments this week were evidence of the growing problem of SPICE in the county, which is evocative of the state and national problem with the drug. Cornwell told the board her son has been using the drug for a year now and was recently taken to the doctor due to health issues related to SPICE.

“I’m here because my son has been taken to the doctor twice,”

she said, standing at the podium,

“He’s gone from a size 48 pants to a size 44 pants in four days…He started hallucinating last night; he’s been hallucinating for 24 hours. We have to restrain him in a chair.”

She said that she was told that the hallucinations could last for the rest of her son’s life or for the next six months and that the doctor’s did not know how long they would last. She also said that her son’s gall bladder is inflamed, his lungs are “burned-up,” and that the drug is affecting something in his brain, which the doctor’s are unable to explain. Emphasizing the severity of the problem, she told a story about a 43 year old woman in town who smoked SPICE and immediately starting seizing in front of her 15 year old daughter.

Cornwell said she was there so the commissioners can help and

“do something about this.”

Sheriff Dane Kirby assured Cornwell that the county has been working to address the issue of the drug, a recent scourge to the community.

Last month, EMA Director Lonnie Oliver also expressed a concern about SPICE. Based on the increase in volume of EMS calls, Oliver said that SPICE use in becoming a big problem for Fannin County; the tale of Cornwell’s son is a magnified and personal example of SPICE’s blight on the county. At end of the January meeting, Commission Chair Bill Simonds asked Oliver to start working on an ordinance with County Attorney Lynn Doss to prohibit SPICE and Bath Salts sales in Fannin County.

During this week’s meeting Sheriff Dane Kirby said that the county and the Sheriff’s Office have been working on a solution to this problem for some time now. Both Kirby and Doss agreed, however, that a county ordinance is not a solution to the problem.

“At this time,”

he said,

“this (local legislation) is not the proper way to handle this. It’s being addressed on a state level, the way it should be.”

Kirby explained that Governor Nathan Deal has given the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) approval to draft legislation, adding that legislation has been brought to the senate.

SPICE and bath salts are illegal in Georgia, which prohibits the sale of any product with this chemical. The challenge with prevention, though, is that the law prohibits the chemical, not a specific manufactured product. Kirby said, though, the legislation sent to the senate addresses

“the molecular structure of these compounds”

used in SPICE. Previously, the legislation prohibited the more elusive chemical compounds.

“I hope it (legislation) will be expedited through the Senate and the House and, hopefully, the Governor can sign it immediately,”

Senator Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega) said, who was present at the meeting.

Legislation, however, seems like only half the answer. According to a local drug task force, the drug is so new that no effective preliminary analysis yet exists. As such, the chemical is not immediately detectable.

For Cornwell, though, the speed of legislation is not enough. She said she plans to boycott places that sell SPICE, like High Times in Blue Ridge. She also said that a Tattoo parlor in McCaysville sells SPICE under various names.

FYN will follow this story as it develops.