Home : News : Region Pasco :

Pasco teen hospitalized after smoking Spice

Video
Photo

Previous Play Next

Regular Photo Size2/2

Posted: 06/07/2012

By: Chris Martinez

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - In all the times Jake Suojanen smoked the synthetic drug Spice, the reaction had never been so severe.

"My head was spinning and I couldn't see straight, I was pretty out of it," Suojanen said.

With just one puff, the teenager says he felt the world slipping away.

"I sat down on the bathroom tub, on the side of the tub, and that's the last thing I remember."

Suojanen spent the next six hours in the emergency room, as doctors tried to bring his heart rate and vital signs back to a normal range. The experience confirmed what his parents say they always knew about the designer drug.

"It's poison, it's poison, it's poison," said Erik Suojanen, Jake's dad.

Spice is one of a number of synthetic drugs banned in Florida. But some parents in Pasco County claim it's still being sold to teens at a number of area stores.

On Wednesday, dozens of protestors gathered outside the Metro Gas station on Little road, where Suojanen says he bought the Spice that sent him to the hospital.

The manager of that store asked ABC Action News to leave his property, after stating he wasn't the only one selling it.

Pasco deputies won't say if they've set their sights on that store, but they do say they're now investigating several locations that they think might still be selling the banned substance.

Jake and his parents say they're also tracking stores, and making a list of their own.

"We're gonna make some noise here and we're gonna try to do what we can," Erik Suojanen said.