FULTON, Miss. — When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven’t been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Some say the powders’ effects are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine.
Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. The chemicals are in bath salts and even plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren’t necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.
Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state’s poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals.
In Brown’s case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the bath salts.
“I couldn’t tell you why I did it,” Brown said, pointing to his scars. “The psychological effects are still there.”
While Brown survived, sheriff’s authorities in one Mississippi county say they think one woman overdosed on bath salts there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot.
Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff’s deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.
The stimulants aren’t regulated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration but are facing federal scrutiny. Law officers say some of the substances are being shipped from Europe, but their origins are unclear.
Gary Boggs, an executive assistant at the DEA, said there is a lengthy process to restrict these types of designer chemicals, including reviewing the abuse data. It’s a process that can take years.
Dr. Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana’s poison control center, said cathinone, the parent substance of the drugs, comes from a plant grown in Africa and is regulated. He said MDPV and mephedrone are made in a lab, and they aren’t regulated because they are not marketed for human consumption.
Kentucky state lawmaker John Tilley said he is moving to block the drug’s sale there, preparing a bill for consideration when his legislature convenes shortly. Angry that the powders can be bought legally, he said, “If my 12-year-old can go in a store and buy it, that concerns me.”
Numbers
25 States that have received calls about exposure to chemicals found in certain bath salts
165 Cases in Louisiana, which leads the nation in the number of cases, 48 percent of the U.S. total
12 Calls to the Missouri Poison Center at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in the first two weeks of January. The center received eight calls about the powders all of last year.
