In Massachusetts, synthetic marijuana is not legal, though it took some legislative maneuvering to make it illegal across the board.
President Obama
signed a bill banning some types of synthetic drugs in 2012, and
all 50 states have enacted similar bans. However, the bans usually encompass only certain compounds, which means new, legal compounds that achieve similar results could be formed fairly easily.
State Senator Michael Moore, a Millbury Democrat, said he helped introduce a measure in Massachusetts that was passed in 2014 to combat that.
“The federal government had it listed as a controlled substance, but it wasn’t listed in the state,” Moore said. “We had to add it to the state’s controlled substance list, and we had to analog it.”
Enacting those measures means the chemical components can be changed slightly and the substance is still classified as illegal, “as long as the purpose and basic components stay the same,” Moore said.
