By Austin Fisher
KU Statehouse Wire Service

TOPEKA — House lawmakers agreed unanimously Thursday on a bill to crack down on newly emerging strains of synthetic marijuana and other psychedelic drugs.

House Bill 2275 adds three recently-created classes of “designer drugs” to the list of Schedule I controlled substances. Designer drugs are synthetic drugs that are chemically modified to achieve the same psychoactive or stimulant effects of controlled substances but avoid the attention of drug law enforcement.

Drugs listed as Schedule I are considered to have a high potential for abuse, no medical use, and no safe use even under medical supervision. Some designer drugs already on the Schedule I list include variants of peyote, ecstasy, and bath salts.

The bill targets certain hallucinogenic methanones that mimic tetrahydrocannabinol, a cannabinoid commonly known as THC, the psychoactive substance found in marijuana.

It also expands an already-controlled class of other synthetic cannabinoids called tetramethylcyclopropanoylindoles to include a version called “FUB-144.”

It also clamps down on a new variant of the 2C class of psychedelic phenethylamines that can be consumed in the form of a pill.

Rep. Ramon Gonzalez (R-Perry) said there is an ongoing battle between drug law enforcement and chemists who are constantly creating new substances that end up on the streets.

“We’ll pass a law every year outlawing these drugs, and the chemists will say, ‘What can we do to change this?’” Gonzalez said. “They figure out what the current illegal drug is, and they’ll move one of the molecules over. Sometimes the new drug is better, sometimes it’s worse. We usually don’t know about the new drugs out there that are causing injuries or deaths until people start showing up at hospitals.”

The Kansas Sentencing Commission said the bill could affect prison admissions but couldn’t provide precise numbers.

Should the bill become law, it will take effect when it appears in the Kansas Register before going into the statute book.

Austin Fisher is a University of Kansas senior from Lawrence majoring in journalism.