Bath Salts??????

http://www.ktvu.com/news/26732329/detail.html

Quote :

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Abbie thought she was experimenting with a harmless recreational drug. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

For about a month, Abbie, who wants to remain anonymous, snorted a new synthetic drug called "bath salts."

"I was not sleeping and not eating. It makes you start seeing stuff that's not there. Weird, but it's scary," Abbie said.

Bath salts come in small packages that contain a fraction of a gram. They have a variety of product names such as Ivory Wave and Vanilla Sky. Regardless of what they're called, this synthetic drug is powerful and potentially deadly. KTVU discovered they combine other street drugs' worst effects.

"This may well be the most dangerous drug experience of a lifetime," said Dr. Richard Geller from the California Poison Control.

California Poison Control has confirmed that six young Californians including one in the Bay Area have been hospitalized with overdoses of so-called bath salt drugs.

"They seem to have the ability to produce hallucinations the way LSD did. They seem to highly addicting in the manner of crack cocaine,” Geller said. "They seem to produce violent behavior like PCP and methamphetamine. They seem to last for an exceptionally long period of time."

KTVU has learned users have committed suicide, mutilated themselves, others have permanent psychotic breaks. KTVU also found out just how easy it was to obtain the drug. They simply were delivered in the mail.

In many states these products are openly marketed in smoke shops and head shops.

Several Northern California smoke shops told KTVU they believed bath salts had not yet become as popular in the Bay Area because they could not be purchased in smoke shops.

"People in San Francisco, for better or worse, can get access to cocaine or speed or heroin or pot or whatever," said SF resident and artist Stan Flouride.

"I've had maybe three customers come in asking for it. We don't sell it here," said Jim Siegel of Distractions Head Shop.

But Siegel said lots of marketers were trying to sell bath salts to him.

"The marketers are always one step ahead of the government,” Siegel said. “They're just changing molecules. One molecule different than what the illegal substance is."

In fact, tests run by KTVU on these powders confirmed a compound called methylenedioxypyrovalerone. Experts said its chemical structure is similar to methamphetamine and ecstasy, but its effects were worse.

"Do you really want to lose your mental health forever? And that apparently is one of the real risks of these bath salts," Geller said.

Hearing voices and being paranoid, Abbie said she thought of suicide.

"Doesn't matter if it's legal. You'll end up killing yourself with it," she said.

It may not be legal for long. KTVU has learned California's Poison Control Director asked the state for an emergency ban on this drug. It could take effect as early as next week. Currently, the Department of Justice and the Department of Public Health were evaluating their authority to act.

Yeah I saw something about this on the news. Some crazy shit. I guess it has cause people to test positive for amphetamines.