A legal drug even a head shop owner won't sell because "It's too hard-core."

HARRISBURG - A Northeast Pennsylvania couple almost slash their 5-year-old daughter with knives as they attack "voices in the walls." A man caught burglarizing an upstate house tells police he was "chased by electricity." And two men die of exposure in Allegheny National Forest.

Those episodes - all in the last two weeks - are being attributed by authorities to a new and potentially lethal designer drug known as "bath salts."

And it's legal.

Use of the powerful party drug, first popularized in European clubs, has swept across the nation, alarming police, physicians, and parents and galvanizing legislators in Pennsylvania and other states to take action.

The drug methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), a stimulant that can produce hallucinations, is marketed in small packets under names such as "Vanilla Sky" and "Ivory Wave." Multicolored wrappers promise "euphoria" and "invigoration."

But you don't soak in these bath salts. Users ingest, inject, snort, or smoke the product sold in powder or rock form that resemble the sodium-based crystals used for centuries to soothe aching muscles in the tub.

The "salts" can deliver a paranoia-filled, violent high that has landed some users - typically teenagers and young adults - in emergency rooms and sent loved ones scrambling to call poison hotlines.

Republican State Rep. Tina Pickett, who represents rural Bradford County in the northern part of the state, said a district justice called her Wednesday to tell of three people in the emergency room that day, and 10 within the last week.

"He said their state of mind is so extreme they end up in the psych ward," said Pickett, who hopes for swift passage of a bill banning the drug. In a committee hearing last week, she urged the state health secretary to issue a public warning.

"From what I heard in the district justice's description and the urgency in his voice," she said, "I'd call this a crisis."

As quickly as the drug appeared on shelves of convenience stores in smaller cities and rural areas of Pennsylvania, reports of overdoses and bizarre crimes began cropping up.

And not just upstate. The Poison Control Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia had a spike in calls about "bath salts" - from four in 2010 to 55 so far this year.

The center's medical director, Kevin Osterhoudt, blamed the drug's easy availability over the Internet and even in bait shops. He said the surge in calls reflected the tip of the iceberg in usage.

March 26, 2011|By Amy Worden, Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

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