Across the country, packets of white powder with names like Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave and White Rush are being sold in convenience stores and gas stations. The packets are labeled and sold as "bath salts," but they are actually a drug that produces a meth-like high and sometimes violent behavior in users. Law enforcement has caught on, and Florida recently joined Louisiana in banning the sale of the powders.
Mark Ryan, the director of the Louisiana Poison Center, first heard of a new, legal drug being sold throughout the Southeast in September. Ryan says bath salts are just one way the drug is labeled and sold.
It's almost like a psychotic break. They're extremely anxious and combative, they think there's stuff trying to get them, they're paranoid [and] they're having hallucinations.
They are usually snorted or smoked — not unlike cocaine or methamphetamine. But Ryan says the poison center has also seen it used differently.
"We've also seen it as growth stimulator, PH optimizer, pond scum remover, [and] not deodorizer but odorizer — quite a few different things, but they were never intended to be any of those things," he says.
Ryan says the bath salts are intended to be legal synthetic drugs.
In September, Ryan says, the poison center got its first call from an emergency room unsure about what it was dealing with. Soon, the center and poison control hotlines in Florida, California and all over the nation were seeing several cases a day.
Ryan says users high on this drug are not easy to deal with.
Additional Resources:
Drug Free Hotline: 1- 800-565-0123
Drug Addiction Library: http://www.treatmentthatworks.com/
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