New Bizarre Drug Trend: Bath Salts

We've heard of some strange crazes over the last year: Four Loko, breast milk cheese, vodka eyeballing, synthetic marijuana, and of course, spaghetti tacos. But now officials have pinpointed the next great weird drug trend: bath salts...wait, uh, bath salts?

Yup: authorities say that more and more people are snorting, injecting or smoking bath salt powders with names such as Ivory Snow, Red Dove, Bliss, Hurricane Charlie, and Vanilla Sky. And the effect is reportedly as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. The chemicals in the salts, mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (aka MDPV), can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts. Dr. Mark Ryan, director of Louisiana's poison control center, gave an idea of the power of the drug: "It causes intense cravings for it. They'll binge on it three or four days before they show up in an ER. Even though it's a horrible trip, they want to do it again and again." We've never been more glad to not take baths than we are now.

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By Ben Yakas in News on January 22, 2011 5:54 PM

Comments [rss]

Mike D

so its not really bath salt? right? what if i switch it with my mother in laws real bath salt?

The Lazy Comic

Wow... I have all those symptoms naturally... and I'm in therapy trying to deal with them. Then there are others who WANT these symptoms? I'll trade them !!!

Ragingsemi

I'm glad I read the comments first, before I started snorting the stuff my wife has in the bathroom.

random transplant

Legalize it & drop the rock & the blues already. Endorphin starved Homo sapiens will do many crazy things.

scallywag

But before loading your nostrils with the stuff, keep what one intrepid Erowid reporter said in mind: “Doing/coming off of MDPV is like winning a Mercedes and being told at the last minute they got your name wrong. Uggh.” And if that weren’t enough to dissuade you, another user reported four hours of essay writing, “two whole hours of finger tapping,” and super-intense high Facebooking. ‘Uggh,’ is right.

http://scallywagandvagabond.co...

moocowstoo

No wonder why my girlfriend disappears in the bathroom for a few hours at a time.

Inconcievable de Impublishable

This explains why all that shit is so fucking expensive!

=SA=Jack.is

Lawl at the picture of real bath salts
It's not actually bath salts people are getting high on, geniuses, any more than K2 is actually incense. It's just marketed as that to avoid violating drug laws.

random transplant

Next you'll be telling me the VCR tape cleaner at the local leather daddy shop isn't really for vintage collectors!

JeanneNYC

Thank you for the clarification. I was thinking, "should I be exposing my naked body to this stuff if it's so toxic?" But I guess I'm safe. :P

chlyn

This story is popping up everywhere, and they're making it sound like the bath salts you can buy in a drugstore are hallucinogenic. Commenter "ben" at Gawker clued everyone in: "This stuff is like Ecstasy, its only sold under the guise of being a "bath salt" so that it gets by customs. This is not some legitimate consumer product."