As with all panics and panic attacks, we are recommended to hold tight, and wait. Even as state after state bans “bath salts,” and Congress gestures that they might ban such drugs whole-sale, it is important to remember that the spectacularly horrible effects of a bad trip on these salts isn’t confirmed, they haven’t been tested, and we don’t know all the facts.
Take the Eugene case. Certainly the 18-minute attack, in which Rudy assaulted, stripped, and then cannibalized a homeless man — the footage of which was caught by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras found in large cities — was graphic and alarming. But was Eugene high on “bath salts”? That’s just a hunch. The man was only known to take natural marijuana, and he was also reportedly known by family to be religiously focused, and was reported by friends to have been “fighting a personal demon.” The toxicology report hasn’t returned yet, and even if a “bath salt” was in his system, that does not indicate that the salt caused his behavior, but perhaps that it triggered a mental condition he already had.
“Bath salts” are so-called so as to duck the radar of the U.S.’s “Federal Analog Act,” which bars the sale of drugs whose effects resembles those of illegal drugs. Such drugs as bath salts are sold in gas stations and on the internet and are just recently being regulated and banned in many states.
The hysteria over them comes from very few but very alarming cases of amazingly violent drug trips, such as a case in Panama City, Florida, where a woman allegedly tried to behead her elderly mother, and another of a man on bath salts who tore up the back of a patrol car with his teeth.
While “bath salt” is a euphemism serving as a blanket term covering a wide variety of “designer drugs,” it often refers to such chemicals as methylenedioxpovalerone (MDPV), which are supposed to have effects similar to cocaine and methamphetamine, with side effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis.
When the entire public is willing to blame a crime on a drug not even proven to be in a man’s system, this can only be a result of mass hysteria. In an age of science, if we are going to make laws that effect everybody, it is wisest to test the drugs scientifically and make appropriate laws to control them. Pushing for an immediate ban on a substance merely because it got associated with a media spectacle would be rash and unjust.
I’m sorry, but if you know anything about bath salts, or even PCP, you know that this kind of behavior is entirely plausible. Those drugs completely overtake people, and can essentially make them into living zombies.
Hallucinations are very common, and usually are centered around themes of God or the devil, or even aliens. A woman last year tried to kill her two-year old because she believed he had been possessed. A guy cut his stomach open (and survived) because he thought God told him too. A man hacked his mother’s head off with a machete because he believed she was possessed. These were all under the influence of bath salts.
Looks like Hollywood ALREADY has the movie going…
This law of banning the bath salt dose not effect every one it would only effect the people who use
“This law of banning the bath salt dose not effect every one it would only effect the people who use”
It would affect everyone’s freedom to use and experiment with the underlying chemicals.
Shana, ‘Bath Salts’ encompass a wide variety of chemicals and only a small sub-sect of them are analogues of PCP and other drugs that trigger hallucinations. It’s not the fault of the drug when people go out and make terrible decisions like the stories the media has been hyper-inflating lately, it’s the people themselves for not knowing enough about the effects of the drugs they are consuming and taking adequate steps to ensure their safety and the safety of others. The only reason that these chemicals have a market is because the natural alternatives (which I will admit do carry substantial risk) are illegal, however when you consider that there has never been a case where someone on LSD ate someone’s face you have to wonder why we’re forcing people to do these alternatives in the first place.
Even after all of the current chemicals found in bath salts today are made illegal (and the majority have been, despite the media circus saying otherwise lately) more will be created to replace them, and I would wager that the replacements will be far more toxic and far more dangerous than the current batch. It’s the result of a failed drug enforcement system.
First, there was the case of a nude man eating that other guy’s face. Then, a mom was accused of killing her baby, eating his brain and biting off three of his toes. Finally, there was that college student who killed a man and ate part of his brain. AND the Canadian psycho gay p*** star who killed his lover in Montreal, ate parts of the body, and posted it online before being arrested in Berlin.
All rational human, non-zombie creatures are obviously thinking the same thing: Zombie apocalypse.
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