Officials Fear Bath Salts Growing Drug Problem
This disgusts me to have to report the
utter depravity of drug users as they are now sniffing and snorting another
common household item women’s bath salts.
By SHELIA BYRD, Associated Press Shelia Byrd, Associated Press – Sat Jan 22,
6:17 pm ET
FULTON, Miss.
– When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and
slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say
others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such
innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing
methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control
centers say the bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace
in several U.S.
states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
From the Deep South to California,
emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders
often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone,
also known as MDPV.
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane
Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates
and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in bath salts and
even plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the
Internet. However, they aren't necessarily being used for the purposes on the
label.
Mississippi lawmakers this week began
considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is
being sought in Kentucky.
In Louisiana,
the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison
center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving
exposure to the chemicals.
In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and
was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away
from the bath salts.
"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his
scars. "The psychological effects are still there."
While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county
say they believe one woman overdosed on bath salts there. In southern Louisiana, the family of
a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot.
Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the
December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the
influence of the bath salts.
The stimulants aren't regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
but are facing federal scrutiny. Law officers say some of the substances are
being shipped from Europe, but origins are
still unclear.
Gary Boggs, an executive assistant at the DEA, said there's a lengthy
process to restrict these types of designer chemicals, including reviewing the
abuse data. But it's a process that can take years.
Dr. Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana's
poison control center, said he thinks state bans on the chemicals can be
effective. He said calls about the salts have dropped sharply since Louisiana banned their
sale in January.
Ryan said cathinone, the parent substance of the
drugs, comes from a plant grown in Africa and
is regulated. He said MDPV and mephedrone are made in
a lab, and they aren't regulated because they're not marketed for human
consumption. The stimulants affect neurotransmitters in the brain, he said.
"It causes intense cravings for it. They'll binge on it three or four
days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want
to do it again and again," Ryan said.
Ryan said at least 25 states have received calls about exposure, including Nevada and California.
He said Louisiana leads with the greatest
number of cases at 165, or 48 percent of the U.S.
total, followed by Florida
with at least 38 calls to its poison center.
Dr. Rick Gellar, medical director for the California Poison Control System,
said the first call about the substances came in Oct. 5, and a handful of calls
have followed since. But he warned: "The only way this won't become a
problem in California
is if federal regulatory agencies get ahead of the curve. This is a brand new
thing."
In the Midwest, the Missouri Poison Center
at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center
received at least 12 calls in the first two weeks of January about teenagers
and young adults abusing such chemicals, said Julie Weber, the center's
director. The center received eight calls about the powders all of last year.
Dr. Richard Sanders, a general practitioner working in Covington, La.,
said his son, Dickie, snorted some of the bath salts
and endured three days of intermittent delirium. Dickie
Sanders missed major arteries when he cut his throat. As he continued to have
visions, his physician father tried to calm him. But the elder Sanders said
that as he slept, his son went into another room and shot himself.
"If you could see the contortions on his face.
It just made him crazy," said Sanders. He added that the coroner's office
confirmed the chemicals were detected in his son's blood and urine.
Sanders warns the bath salts are far more dangerous
than some of their names imply.
"I think everybody is taking this extremely lightly. As much as we
outlawed it in Louisiana, all these kids cross
over to Mississippi
and buy whatever they want," he said.
A small packet of the chemicals typically costs as little as $20.
In northern Mississippi's Itawamba County,
Sheriff Chris Dickinson said his office has handled about 30 encounters with bath salt users in the past two months alone.
He said the problem grew last year in his rural area after a Mississippi law began restricting the sale
of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in making methamphetamine.
Dickinson
said most of the bath salt users there have been meth addicts and can be
dangerous when using them.
"We had a deputy injured a week ago. They were fighting with a guy who
thought they were two devils. That's what makes this drug so dangerous,"
he said.
But Dickinson
said the chemicals are legal for now, leaving him no choice but to slap users
with a charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
Kentucky
state lawmaker John Tilley said he's moving to block the drug's sale there,
preparing a bill for consideration when his legislature convenes shortly. Angry
that the powders can be bought legally, he said: "If my 12-year-old can go
in a store and buy it, that concerns me."