The father of a Fayette County teen who drowned after smoking synthetic marijuana has sued the owner of the store where the now-illegal drug was purchased and, in an unprecedented step, the oil company that provides the station with gas.
David Burnett said Green Oil Co., which owns the store, and BP had been warned of the hazards of “Mojo Diamond Extreme Potpourri” well before his 16-year-old son Chase Burnett bought it in March 2012.
The teenager drowned in his parents’ hot tub “because he was under the influence of one of the synthetic cannabinoids that made him unconscious,” GBI Chief Medical Examiner Kris Sperry said at the time. It was the first time the drug — classified by the state crime lab as a synthetic cannabinoid that “can cause severe injury, altered mental and emotional states, illness and death” — had been officially linked to a death in Georgia.
According to the lawsuit, “The sale of synthetic drugs had been an important topic of considerable discussion and concern in the convenience store industry and retail fuel business for at least two years prior to the death of Chase.”
“Careless and negligence are not excuses,” David Burnett told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In a statement, BP said it “did not own or operate this retail site,” adding the company plans to “vigorously defend itself in this matter.”
Green Oil’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Georgia first outlawed the sale of synthetic pot in 2010, amending the law in 2011. But manufacturers were able to skirt the ban by changing the composition of the product. Finally, in 2012, the all-encompassing “Chase’s Law,” named after Burnett’s son, outlawed the sale of the product for good.
In the meantime, a March 2011 newsletter from the National Association of Convenience Stores — of which Green Oil is a member — informed its merchants that the Drug Enforcement Administration “exercised its emergency scheduling authority to control five chemicals used to make so-called ‘fake pot’ products.”
Subsequent newsletters, sent in June 2011, Jan. 2012 and Feb. 2012, made note of the movement to ban the sale of synthetic marijuana.
“This was an ongoing topic of conversation in the convenience story industry,” said attorney Kristofer Schleicher, who represents the Burnetts. “That they were selling a dangerous product shouldn’t have come as a surprise.”
Burnett, who has also sued the manufacturer of the drug purchased by his son, noted BP waited until after his son’s autopsy results to ban the sale of synthetic pot in all of its branded stores and franchises.
“To me, that’s no coincidence,” he said.
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