‘Bath salts’ latest trend in drug abuse

By Cindy Landrum  

OCTOBER 7, 2011 10:54 a.m. (2)

Bath salts sound innocent enough, but local drug abuse officials say the legally sold synthetic drugs are more dangerous than any illegal drug except methamphetamine and they’re here in the Upstate.

“It’s intense, it’s very fast acting and it’s cheap,” said Bill Coon, manager of the men’s treatment program at Pavillon, a private, nonprofit drug treatment center in Greenville and Asheville. “That’s a dangerous combination.”

Carol Reeves, executive director of the Greenville Family Partnership, said the Upstate is in the early stage of the latest designer drug that is popular with people in their late teens and early- to mid-20s.

She said high school students in Greenville are talking about it but their parents are not.

“They (parents) just think it’s too weird to be real,” she said.

Bath salts sold legally in convenience stores and what Reeves calls “head shops,” contain chemicals that can cause hallucinations, paranoia, delusions and a rapid heart rate and chest pains.

The bath salts, sold in packets labeled “not for human consumption,” are taken orally, inhaled or injected.

Law enforcement was involved in two Spartanburg County cases involving bath salts last week.

In one case, a Cowpens man was arrested after he fired gunshots in his home and at neighbors after eating bath salts earlier in the day. The man told authorities there was a dead body in his house, but no body was found.

In the other case, a Chesnee woman who told deputies she was high on bath salts was arrested for trespassing after repeatedly harassing a neighbor.

Poison control centers around the country received 214 calls involving bath salts from January to April this year, compared to 235 calls all of last year.

Twenty-eight states have banned bath salts and the Federal Drug Administration has temporarily outlawed possession and sale of three synthetic stimulants – mephadrone, MDPV and methylone.

The stimulants are packaged as bath salts and plant food and sold under names such as “Purple Wave,” “Vanilla Sky” and “Bliss.” They are perceived to mimic cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine.

The ban will last at least a year. During that year, the government will determine whether the stimulants should be classified as a controlled substance.

Some users have residual affects after they have stopped using the drug, Coon said. The residual affects can last for days, he said.

“It’s like a bad trip on the worst made LSD,” Reeves said. “It scares me to death.”