“Growing up in Bell, everyone tries it”

By Carrie A. Mizell

Fifteen-year-old Brandon Denham said he always knew that despite the warnings, he would one day use drugs or drink alcohol.
“Growing up in Bell, everyone tries it,” Brandon said.
With his parents on their way to Tennessee for the weekend, Brandon agreed when two friends, ages 15 and 16, asked him to “go smoke” on Friday, Aug. 26.
“I didn’t think I would get in trouble, since my parents were out of town, so I said, ‘Why not?” Brandon recalls.
Within minutes of taking two hits off a pipe containing K-2 Spice, a synthetic marijuana marketed as incense, the Bell High School student fell to the ground and passed out near the high school football field.
“I don’t remember a lot of what happened after that,” Brandon said. “I woke up and I was lying in the shade. A friend of mine took me to his house where I got a shower.”
The friend’s mother then reportedly took Brandon’s heart rate, which was very high at 122 beats per minute. Gilchrist County EMS was called in and Brandon was told to rest and stay hydrated.
“I didn’t really know what I was smoking, they [the two friends] just said they bought it at BP,” Brandon said.
The Bell athlete said on Monday afternoon that he has learned a valuable lesson over the last two weeks, since smoking synthetic marijuana.
“I definitely won’t do it again,” Brandon said. “They say it’s supposed to relax you, but I had the biggest headache afterwards.”
Looking back, Brandon said he now knows that smoking K-2 Spice was very dangerous and could have resulted in death.
“Since I did it, I’ve had eight or nine people come up to me at school and say they almost died from it too, but they never said anything because they were scared they would get in trouble,” Brandon said. “I just hope no one else will try it.”
A basketball player, who is looking forward to also running track this year at school, Brandon said his friends would describe him as, “athletic and smart…on most things."