Police Seize Illegal Bath Salts and 'Spice' From Fremont Smoke Shops

Here's information provided by the Fremont Police Department:

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012, the Fremont Police Department's Street Crimes Unit seized synthetic cannabinoid (a.k.a Spice), salvia and illegal synthetic stimulants (a.k.a. Bath Salts) from two Fremont "smoke" shops.

The Fremont Police Department recently became aware that the two smoke shops; Rocky's Smoke Shop (Crossroads Shopping Center) and Monsters of Rock Smoke Shop (Irvington area), were selling the illegal drugs. Over the course of two weeks, the Department's Street Crimes Unit led an investigation that included an initial educational contact with all of the smoke shops in Fremont and further follow up where the illegal drugs were sold to undercover officers. The owner of Rocky's Smoke Shop, (Vijay Patel), and the manager of Monsters of Rock, (David Ghebreab), were both arrested for 11375.5 (selling, dispensing, distributing a synthetic stimulant compound) and 11357.5 (possession of concentrated cannabis) of the Health and Safety Code. Both cases are under review by the District Attorney’s Office.

Bath Salts and Spice are becoming an increasingly difficult problem for law enforcement as they are new and research is still being done on the effects and health risks related to these substances. Bath Salts are believed to be linked to multiple suicides throughout the nation and FPD has seen at a couple of cases with people on bath salts who are out of control or highly irrational. One of these cases was mentioned in the Police Patrol Blotter this past week (Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 #033) regarding a 24 year old female who was found standing in the middle of the roadway on Fremont Blvd. She was not wearing shoes, could not speak or give her name to officers and would occasionally start screaming for no apparent reason.

In total, approximately 6 pounds of synthetic cannabinoids and several grams of illegal synthetic stimulant bath salts were recovered during the October sting operation. The estimated street value is more than $25,000. The Fremont Police Department is committed to continual enforcement of the sales of these substances and businesses caught selling these substances will be held responsible by FPD as well as City Code Enforcement.

Anyone with information regarding the illegal sales of either of these substances can contact Street Crimes Officer Manrique of the Fremont Police Department at (510) 790-6800 or send us a tip, by using one of our tip reporting software programs at www.fremontpolice.org/tip.