The synthetic stimulants are legal in most of the U.S. for now. As more users show up in emergency rooms, states are taking action.
Dickie Sanders, left, with his father Dr. Richard Sanders. Dickie's… (Sanders Family)
The website that hawks the "concentrated bath salts" warns in red letters: "Not for human consumption."
It cautions against using alcohol and prescription medications while "bathing," and adds, "PLEASE do not use this as SNUFF."
But the little packets of powder, with names like "Ivory Wave" and "Vanilla Sky," were never intended for the tub, and they're not among the fragrant samples in the bath and body shop at the local mall. The "bath salts," are powerful synthetic stimulants, designed to be comparable to cocaine or methamphetamine, and with similar risks, law enforcement and health officials say.
But unlike cocaine or meth, the stimulants are legal in most of the United States, at least for now, selling for about $25 to $40 a packet online and in convenience stores and head shops.
They've become the latest designer drug to raise alarms, as enterprising chemists find ways to stay a step ahead of drug laws.
Poison control centers around the country fielded 235 calls relating to the "bath salts" last year, and already have seen 214 cases this year, according to the American Assn. of Poison Control Centers. There have been scattered reports of users dying, either of overdose or drug-induced suicides or accidents. The drugs can induce extreme paranoia and, in some cases, delusions.
"The patients who were showing up with this, they were off the wall. Some of them looked like a true psychotic break," said Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Center.
His state has been hardest hit, with more than 160 poison control cases and at least three deaths linked to the drugs — two apparent overdoses and a suicide — since the end of September, Ryan said. Gov. Bobby Jindal banned the chemical ingredients of the stimulants by in an emergency order this month. The order remains in effect for 120 days; the Legislature would need to act to make it permanent.
Officers went from store to store the day after Jindal's declaration and picked up hundreds of packages of the drug, said Capt. George Bonnett of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office. The first arrests under the ban were made Jan. 11 in Slidell, where a convenience store clerk and customer were arrested.
The United Kingdom, Ireland and other countries have already banned the drugs. .
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