Teenage girl is left brain-damaged and blind after smoking marijuana

A teenage girl has narrowly avoided death after smoking 'synthetic marijuana' that she bought from a gas station and suffering a series of strokes.

Seventeen-year-old Emily Bauer, from Cypress, Texas, has been left with brain damage, paralysis and is unable to see after taking the synthetic weed with friends last December.


Her family is now hoping to raise awareness of the dangers of the substance, which is often labelled as 'potpourri', while campaigners battle for stricter laws to make it illegal across the country.

Fake weed, which is also known as 'Spice' or 'K2', is an herbal mixture doused with chemicals that trigger a high similar to smoking marijuana, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.


It is often sold as incense or potpourri, and is advertised as a legal alternative to weed. While many states have outlawed it, manufacturers have responded by slightly changing the compound so that it can return to shelves.
Emily smoked the drug last December with friends and within 15 minutes, she told her boyfriend she was suffering from a migraine and needed to lay down.


She suffered a series of strokes which left her in a psychotic-like state, during which she urinated on herself, ran into walls, hallucinated and acted violently, her sister told CNN's iReport.

The police were called to help restrain her into an ambulance, and she was taken to Northwest Cypress Hospital, where she bit guardrails and attempted to bite medical staff.


'We thought once she comes down off the drug, we'd take her home and show her the dangers of this drug,' her older sister, Blake, said.

'We didn't think it was as big of a deal until 24 hours later she was still violent and hurting herself. We realized you're not supposed to stay high this long.'

She was put into an induced coma as doctors carried out tests on her brain.

Doctors soon found Emily's strokes had caused severe vasculitis, meaning contracting blood vessels had constricted the flow of blood and cut off oxygen to her brain.

'In four days' time, we went from thinking everything is going to be OK and we'll put her in drug rehabilitation to now you don't know if she's going to make it,' stepfather Tommy Bryant told CNN.

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