SALEM — Some Oregon teens are using an herbal incense with synthetic forms of the active ingredient in marijuana to get high.

Herbal incense also known by brand names Spice, K2 or Buzz is legal and sold in area smoke shops. But parents of teens who have smoked herbal incense and suffered adverse effects are calling for it to be banned.

Herbal incense isn’t regulated by law, so police have no grounds for enforcement when they find a person using it, police said.

“There’s absolutely nothing that we can do about it,” Salem Police Sgt. Dennis Engel said. “That’s the hard part.”

Police in Salem and Marion County have rarely encountered the incense being smoked, though they expect that they might see it more frequently.

Engel, who leads Salem police’s street crimes drug investigation unit, said he recently heard about herbal incense. Since then, he’s been doing research on the substance.

Synthetic cannabinoids

Herbal incense’s active ingredients are synthetic cannabinoids, chemicals that imitate the effect of the THC found in marijuana, according to Oregon Partnership, a nonprofit that seeks to end substance abuse and suicide.

The compound in herbal incense, JWH-018, is about four times more powerful than the THC in marijuana, according to the group, which is calling for Oregon to ban the substance, as Kansas did earlier this year.

Herbal incense sells for about $160 per ounce, Engel said. That’s about half the price of marijuana, which can sell for $250 to $300 per ounce, he said.

In a group of about 15 teens gathered downtown last week, more than half said they’d smoked the incense. The teens ranged in age from 12 to 18 at the time they first smoked it, they said.

The group described the high as more hallucinogenic than marijuana. Most of the teens said they preferred the “laid-back, relaxed” high of marijuana to the “dizzy” and “warped” high from smoking incense.

Warning on packaging

At Smokey’s Novelties in Liberty Plaza downtown, prices for herbal incense range from $5 to $60 depending on amount and quality, said owner Edward Lara. Lara said he’s sold herbal incense since he opened the shop in 2002.

“I’ve had steady business for this stuff,” Lara said. “It’s just starting to go more mainstream.”

Each package warns “not for human consumption,” but Lara is concerned that people are using it for other purposes.

“When stuff starts to gain in popularity, they start to abuse it,” Lara said. “People make bad choices. … You’re not supposed to smoke it. (That’s) not its intent.”