A group of Spice dealers are targeting homeless people and police know who they are, an Anchorage officer said Wednesday -- but they can't do anything about it unless changes are made to city law.
Anchorage Police Department Lt. Sean Case said that an ordinance heading to the Anchorage Assembly next week making Spice possession a crime could be a game-changer, but it won't be enough to address the deeper issues of this vulnerable population.
In Anchorage, emergency medical calls related to suspected Spice use first spiked in mid-July, and so far there has been little respite. October was the busiest month yet -- about one-fifth of all emergency transports were suspected to be Spice-related.
Case said the initial spike is "pretty unusual (in that) we can pinpoint it to a series or a couple of days" in mid-summer.
"It literally was an individual going down and providing free Spice … to homeless (people) as they were coming out of Brother Francis for the night," Case said, referring to the Anchorage shelter.
After that, he said, the price rose incrementally, first to $1, then $5 and now sometimes as much as $10 for a joint. Spice, a synthetic drug typically made by spraying synthetic cannabinoids onto plant materials, quickly became one of the popular highs on the market.
Medical data reflects a targeted homeless population. Forty percent of all Spice-related emergency calls are within a grid of several blocks where Bean's Cafe and Brother Francis provide social services.
And while Spice emergency medical calls come from all over the city, 80 percent are from downtown and Mountain View, according to data from Anchorage Fire Department assistant chief of emergency medical service operations Erich Scheunemann.
'We got the players; we know who they are'
So far, police have been powerless to do much because selling Spice is not a crime. It's a civil violation, akin to a traffic ticket, and will net a dealer a $500 fine, but nothing else.
Police have issued 37 citations for Spice since July 15, according to APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro. Of the 16 that are due for payment, none have been paid, and one is being contested.
Thirty-seven citations may seem low compared to hundreds of medical emergency calls, but Case said that in some instances police aren't citing dealers because they have been trying to build criminal cases against them. If a citation is made, a person could potentially argue later that criminal charges are redundant, he said.
In an attempt to prove criminal intent, Anchorage police first investigated whether the Spice was laced with something else that was causing the adverse reactions.
But those lab results came back negative, and "that's why this ordinance now becomes critical," Case said.
Anchorage's ordinance would make sale and possession a misdemeanor, allowing police to criminally charge dealers for the first time.
Dealers, not users, are the primary target for police. Charging the people who wind up in emergency rooms on Spice would be "pretty ridiculous," Case said.
Police believe Spice is being purchased online and that none of it is being manufactured in Anchorage. They also believe the dealers aren't homeless -- they "have a place where they can rest their head and call a home," Case said.
By selling Spice as rolled cigarettes, dealers are roughly doubling the price of one packet for users. A $50 purchase will return $100 to dealers, Case said.
Emergency medical calls seem to come in waves, which Case believes is the result of the exchanges between police and dealers. "There is no supply and demand issue … (dealers) can get it any time that they want," Case said.
Once police confiscate dealers' Spice, "They disappear, and then all of a sudden, two weeks later, (medics) are transporting 20 people in one day," Case said.
The dance between dealers and police continues with "no end state," Case said. "But really, for what?"
"Imagine the situation that the officers are in … we got the players, we know who they are, we got eager officers who want to go out and do something," Case said, but until the law is in place, nothing can be done.
'Hopefully this will be enough'
The ordinance goes before the Anchorage Assembly on Nov. 10. It contains broad language that covers both Spice (synthetic cannabinoids) and bath salts (synthetic cathinones), making possession and sale of both a crime.
The city's struggle mirrors a larger national problem. On Oct. 15, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced the results of a 15-month investigation into synthetic "designer drugs" that culminated in 151 arrests in 16 states.
In its release, the DEA said it has "identified over 400 new designer drugs in the United States -- the vast majority of which are manufactured in rogue labs in China and sold on the Internet and in retail outlets."
Spice "represents the most significant class of designer synthetic drugs," the release says later.
Still, Spice has been around for years, and Case didn't have a clear answer about why the medical emergencies are happening now. The state health department is trying to answer that question and earlier this week hypothesized that stronger synthetic cannabinoids may be responsible.
Assembly member Ernie Hall said his vote on Tuesday would be "absolutely a yes," and said he was "sure (the ordinance) is going to pass."
"I mean, it's becoming an epidemic … Hopefully this will be enough to intimidate people that are selling it," Hall said.
Still, even if police can criminally charge dealers, there is always the concern that another dealer will fill the void, Case said. "You always have to figure out, when does the punishment become a great enough deterrent?"
And a criminal ordinance isn't enough, he said. Spice issues are part of a larger societal problem.
From sexual assault to substance abuse, social issues are "astronomical" for the homeless population, Case said, and solving issues of addiction will take a broader community effort.
Meanwhile, the city says it will release a "more comprehensive plan to address the needs of the homeless community" in the coming weeks, spokesperson Myer Hutchinson said.
Case said he doesn't expect the problem to disappear overnight. "The wheels of justice don't move very quickly. There's a long process that's involved," he said.