BATH SALTS

By

McKenzi Deters

WHAT ARE BATH SALTS?

• Bath salts are a synthetic drug that contain a family of drugs with one or more synthetic chemicals that are related to cathinone.

• Cathinone is an amphetamine-like substance found naturally in the Khat plant.

• The common synthetic cathinones found in bath salts are MDPV (methylenedioxypyrovalerone), mephedrone, and methylone. There are still many others but a lot is unknown about how these substances effect the brain.

THE THREE M’S

• MDPV is a psychoactive drug that also shares some of the same properties as MDMA (ecstasy). Its acts on several neurotransmitters, mainly dopamine, which is associated with reward circuity in the brain. It also effects the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine.

• Mephedrone is a synthetic stimulant. It’s in the psychoactive drug class that produces distinctive emotional and social effects that are also similar to MDMA.

• Methylone is a stimulant of the amphetamine and cathinone classes. Also produces the same properties that MDMA has.

WHAT DO BATH SALTS LOOK LIKE?

• Bath salts are in the form of a white or brown crystalline powder.

• They are sold online or in drug paraphernalia stores.

• There are several brand names for bath salts such as “Ivory Wave”, “Bloom”, “Cloud Nine”, “Vanilla Sky”, “Lunar Wave”, “White Lightning”, “Scarface” and many more other names.

HOW ARE BATH SALTS USED?

• Bath salts can be taken orally, inhaled, or injected.

• The worst outcomes of the use of bath salts are snorting and needle injection.

HOW DO BATH SALTS WORK IN THE BRAIN?

• The energizing and agitating effects of baths salts are consistent with other drugs like amphetamines and cocaine.

• Like these drugs bath salts raise the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brains circuits that control reward and movement.

• A rush of dopamine in these circuits cause feelings of euphoria and increased activity.

• There is also a surge of norepinephrine which increases heart rate and blood pressure.

…OTHER SYMPTOMS

• Extreme paranoia

• Elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse

• Increased body temperature

• Sleep deprivation

• Vivid hallucinations

• Hostility or aggression

• Strange eye movements

• Extreme sweating

• Panic attacks

• Suicidal thoughts

DOSAGE

• There really isn’t a recommended dosage for bath salts, it’s just whatever the user buys and they either ingest the whole bag in one sitting or they do it over a period of time.

• The nervous system can overload on too much though and that results in panic attacks, strange mood swings, and violent and aggressive behavior.

• The body just begins to over heat when it has consumed too much.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

• Someone who is high on bath salts can’t get any sleep because their body is in complete overdrive and it cannot stop whatsoever.

• A sedative like a Xanax can’t even help a users body calm down. Nothing will stop the body from doing what it wants to do.

• The body is so agitated and fired up that a sedative won’t even counter the effects of bath salt ingestion.

• Depression can begin to occur overtime and the stress levels can increase due to sleep deprivation.

VISITS TO EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS AND POISON CONTROL CENTERS

• Patients that have been rushed to emergency rooms have needed serious medical attention from taking bath salts.

• Patients with the syndrome known as “excited delirium” may also be suffering from dehydration, breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue, and kidney failure after taking bath salts.

• Intoxication from several of the synthetic cathinones in bath salts have resulted in fatalities in a few instances.

INCIDENTS OF BATH SALT INTAKE

• California: two 15 years old boys fell violently ill and developed small holes in their lungs after consuming mephedrone which they thought was MDMA (ecstasy).

• Colorado: a drug called Alpha-PVP, a type of bath salt, led to a young man’s death by strangulation when his friends tried to restrain him during a violent fight.

• Washington: investigators reported a double-murder suicide in which a man killed his wife and 5-year-old son and then shot himself.

• Louisiana: a 21-year-old man slit his throat in front of his family after he snorted bath salts, because he believed the police were after him.

• Pennsylvania: police arrested a couple high on bath salts who had nearly cut their 5-year-old daughter with a knife, which they were using to stab the “90 people” they believed were “living in the walls” of their apartment.

• West Virginia: a man high on bath salts was found wandering the woods in lingerie after he allegedly stabbed a goat.

• Indiana: a man committed suicide after telling his family for weeks that the FBI were following him and watching him eat.

• Ohio: a young man was fatally shot after he held a knife to his girlfriend’s neck.

ZOMBIE ATTACK!

• On May 26, 2012 in Miami Florida just off of the MacArthur Causeway, a 30-year-old homeless man Rudy Eugene attacked another homeless man, 65-year-old Ronald Poppo. During that afternoon before Eugene attacked Poppo he was walking around the street completely naked not knowing where he was or what he was even doing.

• When Eugene got to Poppo he got on top of him and started to beat him unconscious. He removed Poppo’s pants and then later began to eat his face completely tearing it all apart with his teeth.

• Eugene bit off nearly 75% of Poppo’s face, the damage to his eyes left him blind in both of them.

SHOTS FIRED!

• When the police arrived they yelled at Eugene to stop and to get off of Poppo. Eugene actually turned around and growled at the police like he was some kind of animal that was having their meal and did not want to be disturbed.

• Eugene just kept on going holding down Poppo and eating his face. Several shots were fired at him to stop him and finally the last one did kill Eugene.

• The police didn’t want to use a taser or try to grab ahold of Eugene to pull him off. It wouldn’t have done any good anyways because when some people are on drugs they feel that they have built this super strength that cannot be taken down. The police weren’t going to risk their lives of getting hurt or possibly even killed by Eugene.

TO THE RESCUE!

• Poppo was finally rescued by the police and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He had extreme injuries but he was alive.

• With 75% of his face missing the emergency personnel said that they have never seen anything like this before.

• They then tried to figure out what sparked this kind of attack on someone. Rudy Eugene’s mind was on some other planet that made him a completely different person. The doctors did toxicology tests and for one they knew that Eugene probably had some kind of mental illness, and the psychotic behavior came from the cocaine that he had in his system and also the form of bath salts that he had taken.

…BEFORE

• Rudy Eugene • Ronald Poppo

…AFTER

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

• A year after the attack, Poppo spent almost a month in the hospital before moving to a long term facility.

• Poppo wasn’t very comfortable with having visitors, he just let his doctors and his nurses in to see him. He said “my face”. That was it.

• He was very thankful for the doctors who saved his life though and helped him with his surgery and the reconstruction of his face.

• He knew that more work needed to be done on his face but in the meantime he was happy with what he had and was grateful for being alive.

• A face transplant wasn’t necessary for Poppo. He didn’t lose any of the functions in his body or anywhere in his face, he just lost his vision.

• Poppo still needs day to day medical care for his wounds and he has specialists to help him get used to and get comfortable with his blindness.

RECONSTRUCTION

HOW BAD IS THIS DRUG?

• In some cases doctors haven’t even been able to take people down when they are admitted into the hospital after taking bath salts. They cannot be controlled, they are a completely different person. They act like they are a complete animal and if you even tried to step close to them you will be hurt.

• This drug raises the body temperature so rapidly which is why people begin to take off their clothes. The user feels like he or she is melting on the inside.

• With police dealing with some cases, not even tasers or pepper spray can even take someone down who is high on bath salts.

WORK CITED

• Baumann, M. H. "Stimulants in "Bath Salts" Produce Effects Similar to MDMA."National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). National Institute on Drug Abuse, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

• CBS. "Ronald Poppo, Face-chewing Victim, Still Recovering One Year Later: Hospital." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 21 May 2013. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

• DiSalvo, David. "The Straight Dope on What Bath Salts Do to Your Brain and Why They're Dangerous." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 5 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

• Goddard, Jacqui. "Did Bath Salts Spark Miami's Gruesome 'Zombie' Attack?" The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 29 May 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

WORK CITED

• Haiken, Melanie. "'Bath Salts' A Deadly New Drug With A Deceptively Innocent Name." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 4 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

• Mohan, Geoffrey. "'Zombie' Drug Bath Salts More Potent than Meth, Study Finds."Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 11 July 2013. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

• NIDA. "DrugFacts: Synthetic Cathinones ("Bath Salts")." National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). National Institute on Drug Abuse, Nov. 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.

• Nordqvist, Christian. "What Is Mephedrone? What Are the Effects of Mephedrone?" Medical News Today. Medical News Today, 9 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.