All over the U.S., bath salts are being sold with names like “Ivory Wave,” “White Lightning” and “Hurricane Charlie.”

But these aren’t your average bath salts that you pour into the bathtub to soak in after a long, hard day to relax – these so-called bath salts are intended to be snorted, smoked or injected – and users are getting high off of them.

The Drug Enforcement Administration does not regulate these substances, but they are under federal scrutiny, as the effects of these salts are comparable to methamphetamine abuse, according to poison control centers and other law enforcement agencies.

Law officers say some of the substances are being shipped from Europe, but origins are still unclear.

The powders often contain mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV, and can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in products sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet as bath salts and even plant foods. 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.

One man, Neil Brown, of Fulton, Miss., got high off the bath salts and then slashed his face and stomach. He survived, but authorities said other people have not been so lucky.

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 advertised 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 the powders 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.

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 chemicals 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 chemicals 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 substances are far more dangerous than some of their brand 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 users of the advertised bath salts 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."

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/01/24/americas-new-drug-problem-snorting-bath-salts/?test=latestnews#

God people can be so dumb. Last week they were snorting cremated ashes of two dogs and a person, before that spice and getting high off massive amounts of Robotussin and now this.

Things like this should be made illegal.

Yes, if only the nanny state would outlaw everything that could possibly harm us, all would be well with the world. Seriously, OP, you need to mind your own business and let other people get high if that's their prerogative. They aren't hurting you or anyone else, after all.

Next thing ya know, you'll be coming on these boards and demanding that everyone's hands should be monitored in case they want to play the choking game to get high. Great shades of George Orwell!

Stunning counter-point there. (not)

And the noose only gets tighter around our necks........

HB...behave.


Lp...unfortunately there seem to be no limits to how far disturbed
minds will go anymore. I'm so sick of every time I turn around in
a store having to be ID'd just to be able to buy something. They
even have "classes" in schools now that "teach" the kids what things
are and can be used for drug purposes....REALLY?!? What kids don't
know, or what things they don't know...LET'S TEACH THEM.

Instead of "cutting" school and community programs, try adding more,
in more areas. I also get sick of hearing how there's no money or a
shortage of personnel. Let's see...they can come up with millions of
dollars for things like "research" into building an elevator to the
moon, replacing all the streetsigns in New York City (I think that's
where it was?) to have them all "up to date" and "correct"...most
are all uppercase...such a tragedy, and the millions/billions they
always seem to "find" to send everywhere else. Seems they could put
even a fraction aside and have plenty for the kids, it's a matter of
deeming the children a priority again, it would also create a number
of much needed jobs.

A counter-point wasn't necessary.

I am afraid that as long as there is the sickness of thinking that the only way to enjoy life is "getting high", there will be those who will find a way to "get high".

I figure it is their brain to fry and their life to end.

I only have an issue with it when they hurt others IE drunk driving, put the baby in the microwave, shoot up the aliens who are really people, etc....

This. All these bans do is punish the responsible people. The ones that really want something, they'll still get it. Same goes for any other bans. More importantly, once you let them take away one thing, they'll try and take away something else, then something else, and something else after that. It never ends, they will find a reason to ban or limit just about anything if we allow them. There's a reason our rights and freedoms are ever dwindling, and this is part of why.

I agree, when kids are bored they will sometimes turn to drugs. We here are the Meth capitol of the US, and there is nothing for kids to do here.

It's pretty sad the amount of juvinile shoplifters I would catch t work who were under the influence of Meth, Pot, Heroine, Crack and everything else you can think of. I would say 90% of the juviniles I cought were high on something.

All Drugs = Crime

Exactly.

Anything can be abused, inhalants are abused on a daily basis by millions of people...yet you are not raving on about illegalizing spray-paint. Personally, let them do whatever they want, let them fry their brain or kill their body. Quit playing babysitter selectively and start doing something like, oh, I don't know, research or something.

Such things as spice that is marketed as a legal alternative to marijuana and is said to give you the same sensation as marijuana, that stuff has put dozens of my friends into hospitals and even more people into a 6-foot deep hole in the ground. Inhalants such as air freshener kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, yet you are not raving on about it.

You're selection of arguments is downright awful...

Exactly Fear...the STUPID little things like spices, paints, Whip
Cream, markers and glues, etc. My daughter also told me recently
something about pulling some kind of pictures apart, crumpling them
up, and smoking them-I guess it's something in the paint that gets
them high. Also pain patches and such, they poke holes in them and
then suck and chew on them for a while-wtf? I can't tell you the
last time I was ID'd for alcohol...but spray paint, various meds,
exacto knives-including the tiny model car ones & even the paints,
and a couple other weird things...ID'd.

Rather silly isn't it, and nanny state like.

Hey, can you send me an email, I had wanted to ask you something but I couldn't do it since you're age limitations won't allow it.

Oh...

Yeah I forgot...

Americans are bad...

They are all addicted to something.

really tired of it.

Ummm, becaause there is no legal benefit for spice. Who would pay $30.00 for a small package of incense? Same with this bath salt. They are only out there for bad purposes and have no legal purposes.

Well, we need to nip it in the butt before it get's to bad.

Should we illegalize incense too? I mean, there is no real legal benefit of it. Again, anything can be abused, my suggestion, research it a little bit better than what your news channel tells you.

Of course, that would defeat the purpose of you looking high and mighty by bringing this obviously unknown issue to our attention...how graceful...

Insense isn't $25.00 for a small pinch. The manufacturers know what they are doing and it's criminal.

Which is it? $25 or $30? Again, it sounds like you read more about it than you actually know about it.

Are you in a position to say what is and is not criminal? Are you a judge? Have you proven them guilty already beyond a reasonable doubt?

Until you are a judge you are hardly qualified to say what is criminal. Until you've actually studied the substance further than the news is willing to hold your hand, you are hardly qualified to make a determination.