Counter-terrorism chemical labs test for synthetic pot

[TomClash]

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TSA screenings aren't just for airports anymore

By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau
January 28, 2012, 6:23 p.m.
Reporting from Little Rock, Ark.— When Jeffery H. Moran goes to work each day, he swipes his security badge, passes into an airtight chamber, opens a bombproof door and enters a lab full of deadly toxins.

As chief of the counter-terrorism laboratory at the Arkansas Department of Health — one of 62 such federally funded labs in the country — he heads two dozen chemists who are on constant alert for the release of pestilence or poisons in the United States.

Armed with $2 million worth of new equipment, Moran concocts gruesome tests to keep his team sharp. He has laced samples of baby formula with lethal ricin. Poured rat poison into water bottles. Tainted blood with cyanide gas.

None of those are based on real plots, thankfully. So he's added a new task — helping police in half a dozen states identify "Spice," a chemical substance that produces a marijuana-like high and has sent hundreds of users to emergency rooms.

"It's an unknown chemical," Moran said. "That's exactly what we would have to deal with in a terrorist attack."

Using a counter-terrorism lab to test for synthetic marijuana is the latest sign of how a multibillion-dollar national infrastructure built to detect or respond to chemical or biological attacks over the last decade has adapted to the lack of any actual attacks.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror-weed-20120129,0,531299.story