ABOVE: NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, TECH. SGT. MICHAEL R. HOLZWORTH
About a decade ago, Clemson University chemist John Huffman started getting calls from law enforcement agencies. Officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other federal agencies wanted to know more about JWH-18, a synthetic cannabinoid bearing Huffman’s initials that he’d created in the lab in 2004 and described in scientific paper in 2005. The compound was turning up in incense, which, rather than being burnt for its scent, was being smoked and was making people sick.
Huffman’s intent, like other scientists who had generated synthetic cannabinoids over the years, was not to create recreational drugs. It was to study the effects of cannabis in the body and how the cannabinoid system works, as well as to develop molecules to image areas of the brain. “The chemistry to make these things is very simple and very old,” Huffman told The ...
