Posted on 01/17/2011 11:01:29 AM PST by greatdefender
The half-gram bottle of bath salts promises an "invigorating" and "energizing" experience.
But to local and federal authorities, it's another dangerous product misused as fake cocaine that's sending youths to emergency rooms and mental hospitals in Florida and across the country.
As federal officials prepare to ban synthetic marijuana, specialty shops and convenience stores across Florida have started stocking up on bottles of bath salts. Louisiana and Florida authorities have linked these bath salts to at least two suicides in Louisiana, 21 calls to Florida poison control centers and dozens of hospital visits in Central and South Florida in the past year.
"We're seeing teenagers experiment with this," said Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, chief of emergency medicine for Broward Health. "They will do stuff that they wouldn't normally do, like dive from a third-story window into a pool. It's very, very dangerous."
These products being sold as bath salts are not those commonly to be used in baths, authorities say. Some manufacturers are making designer drugs being sold as bath salts, said Wendy Stephan, health educator with the Florida Poison Information Center in Miami.
Users usually snort the powder and experience effects similar to cocaine and crystal meth, El Sanadi said. But the euphoria often leads to paranoia, chest pains and irregular heart beats.
Those cases have popped up at Broward General Medical Center and other Broward Health hospitals, El Sanadi said.
"They come in confused, disoriented, with high blood pressure," said El Sanadi, who first noticed the trend in spring 2010. "I guarantee you most parents don't even suspect their kids might be doing it."
A half-gram bottle sells for $25-$30.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
There’s a reason they call illicit drugs dope...
Okay. . .but they aren't commonly used to snort up into one's nose either. Sounds like the problem is with the kids "experimenting" with it.
Just make this stuff lethal in one dose and no more problem.
LLS
Like the line from the old commercial: “Why do you think they call it ‘dope’?”
Sounds like a Darwin award is in order...
Banana peels - scrape ‘em, dry the scrapings, smoke.
Great for the produce business, bad for the gastric lavage unit’s cash flow.
I had a friend that tried Chantrix to quit smoking and began waking up every night thinking he should kill himself. FDA approved or not, compounds that cross the blood brain barrier and alter your brain function can all have side effects.
They have been really pushing this hard here in Memphis on the nightly local news...it gives the kids who don’t want a drug rap on their records another way to get high legally.
And bath salts will soon join certain cold meds as behind the counter sales.
I laughed the first time I heard this story, and the headline made me smile again.
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