Councilors File Ordinance To Ban Sale of Drug ‘Spice,’ Plan Smoking Ban for Hyannis Green

CCB MEDIA PHOTO Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald talks to a group of community leaders gathered in a conference room at the Barnstable Police Department last night. Hyannis Civic Association members Ralph and Deborah Krau are at left and Town Attorney Ruth Weil is at right.

CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald talks to a group of community leaders gathered in a conference room at the Barnstable Police Department last night. Hyannis Civic Association members Ralph and Deborah Krau  and Elizabeth Wurfbain of the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District, are at left and Town Attorney Ruth Weil is at right.

HYANNIS – The Barnstable Town Council is planning two initiatives to deal with the problem of a synthetic marijuana substance that is being sold at local convenience stores and smoked, leaving users in a stupefied state.

The drug, known as spice, is sold in local convenience stores in colorful packets that state that the substance—a mix of vegetation and man-made chemicals—is not for human consumption. But because of its availability and relatively inexpensive cost, it has emerged as a popular illicit substance in the region.

Last night a group of town councilors, police and community leaders gathered in a conference room at the Barnstable Police Station to discuss the problem and what can be done about it.

Barnstable Police Officer Jeannie Challies of the Community Impact Team, which deals mainly with homeless people on Main Street in Hyannis, said the drug puts users in a “zombie-like state.”

Police say in Hyannis, the substance is used mostly by young people and homeless people. The packets can be found littering the Hyannis Village Green, police said.

The Federal Drug Administration has banned 17 chemicals that have been used in spice, but the manufacturers keep switching the chemicals to ones that have not been banned in order to continue to sell the substance, according to Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald.

MacDonald said his officers identified more than 50 convenience stores in the town of Barnstable and sent them all a letter reminding them to follow rules on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol and asking them not to sell spice and drug paraphernalia as a way of being good neighbors.

Police then visited 10 stores that were known to sell the drug and asked the managers not to carry the drug, “in the spirit of cooperation.”

“We are looking for voluntary compliance,” MacDonald said.

Barnstable Town Councilor Jennifer Cullum of Hyannis has led the effort to try to get the drug out of local stores.

She learned of an ordinance banning the sale of spice from her sister, who lives in New Hampshire.

That New Hampshire ordinance has been reworked by the town attorney to be used in Barnstable.

“With a little bit of tweaking, we seem to have found a way to come at it and give the police another tool to combat the problem on our Main Street right now, which is great,” Cullum said.

Town councilors will have a first reading of the ordinance at their meeting on August 13. The ordinance will be able to be voted on at the council’s next meeting on September 3.

In the meantime, the council has asked Barnstable Town Manager Thomas Lynch to sign a regulation that would ban smoking on the Hyannis Village Green, an area known to be a popular place for homeless people to gather and smoke spice, Cullum said.

“We’re working on a regulation now. It’s in its final draft for the town manager to sign, to prohibit all smoking on the green. That seems to be a place where we have a lot of drug activity, a lot of spice smoking and loitering,” Cullum said.

Cullum said she would be in favor of a town-wide ban on smoking. “We’re thinking that if we do away with the smoking, we might do away with part of the problem,” she said.

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