The Providence Journal / Kris Craig
Fake marijuana "Mad Monkey" has a warning label "Do Not Smoke." Many who do often end up in the hospital.
The patients are mentally confused, anxious, trembling, incoherent or barely conscious. Some are paranoid or prone to hallucinations when they arrive in the emergency room.
The Providence Journal / Kris Craig
"Mad Monkey," a fake, legal marijuana substitute.
Others are coherent enough to blame their suffering on a product sold legally in stores and smoked like marijuana.
Known by a variety of catchy brand-names -- as well as nicknames such as "monkey weed" -- the product looks like marijuana, but retailers sell it as herbal incense, potpourri or "botanical sachet." Potpourri smokers pay a fraction of what they would shell out for pot, and the transaction is legal.
In a fad that seems to have gathered momentum over the summer, Rhode Islanders are smoking the product, at great personal risk, because they've wrongly concluded it's a safe marijuana alternative, according to police and emergency room doctors.