Laced Synthetic Drugs Not Reported in Fond du Lac County

More than a dozen confirmed cases of people being hospitalized due to the use of synthetic drugs have been reported in Wisconsin over the past few weeks. Users have experienced severe bleeding – after using drugs laced with rat poison. 

Captain Ryan Waldschmidt says authorities are keeping their eyes open in Fond du Lac County, especially after cases in Milwaukee and Outagamie Counties. Waldschmidt says “we have not seen any cases of that here in Fond du Lac County and I know our health department hasn’t reported any cases and the hospital hasn’t either. We’re not aware of any cases of the bleeding here but we’re certainly monitoring it.”

He adds that synthetic marijuana – or K-2 – isn’t legal or regulated, and that may be how someone snuck rat poison into a few recent batches. He reminds people “what it says the ingredients are on the package isn’t always the case and there’s nobody verifying that what the ingredients listed on the package is actually in the package. So with that, it’s always dangerous to consume something like that and we certainly preach to people not to for those reasons.”

Waldschmidt says several people in the Chicago area have died due to the tampered drugs, and that “certainly if somebody has any symptoms like this after ingesting what
they thought was K2 or Spice, they need to seek treatment right away, it’s a
true medical emergency and people are dying from this and people are being
severely injured and hospitalized because of ingesting this. We preach if
you’re having issues, get to a hospital, get to a doctor.”

He also expressed concern over the colorful packaging of some synthetic drug products – that may be appealing to younger people.