JWH-018 was "nothing special", Dr Huffman remembered, "but it was one of the more potent compounds we made, and it was quite easy to make from commercially available materials. Probably the reason it has now caught on." [...]
[...]"My biggest surprise was that this all hadn't happened sooner," he told me. "All it needed was somebody with a reasonable understanding of science to see the papers we had published and think, 'Aha!'"

And with the perspective of a 77-year-old organic chemist:

"I've lived around the world a long time," said Dr Huffman. "I've come to the conclusion that if an enterprising person wants to find a new way to get high, they're going to do it."