The Latest Deadly Drug Habit

Who would have thought that bath salts could be deadly. When Neil Brown got high on dangerous chemicals sold as 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 Wave, 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 advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
Apparently there are some brands of bath salts that include a chemicals from China and India called Mephadrone and MDPV. These organic chemicals are imported from these countries, added to the salts, and then marketed in the US. Names of the salts also include "White Lightning," and "Hurricane Charlie." Teens and adults are smoking it, snorting it, and injecting it.
The results of this abuse are deadly. Users of this experience hallucinations, altered speech pattern, delirium, severe paranoia, pscyhosis, and suicide. 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 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.
At the present time, federal authorities are also looking into what can be done to stop the sale of these "bath salts." In the mean time, parents need to be aware of this new danger.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul