"Bath Salts"

The illicit recreational drug pharmacopoeia just keeps growing.  And, it seems, with each new introduction into man-made chemicals whose use can alter perception and create hallucinatory delusions, changing peoples' personalities, slowly altering the integrity of their physical bodily organs, and eventually taking their toll on the quality of life, the situation becomes more dire.

A new concoction, a synthetic cocaine product which physically resembles an innocuous household substance used in bath water, has been named "bath salts".  Harmless-sounding nomenclature for yet another dangerous drug that can lead otherwise-normal people toward psychotic behaviour.  This is yet another powerful new drug.  It is composed with the active agent of Methylenedioxypyrovalerone.

For those who dislike tongue-twisters, and that one certainly qualifies, it can be shortened to MDVP, mephedrone or methylone.  "I've been working in addictions for 19 years - and this is the first drug which really has me concerned", was the interestingly alarming statement expressed by the director of addiction services in northern Nova Scotia, during an interview.

Hospital emergency rooms have had to deal with roughly three cases weekly of people on bath salts experiencing duress, over the past several months.  "We are concerned ... because in an unusually short period of time - anywhere from one month to two months - folks are going from using this drug to having very severe, negative consequences....

"Police and emergency physicians are having problems because this is a stimulant similar to speed, and you are having that amped-up extra strength and aggression.  These folks are experiencing psychosis, so they don't really know what's going on - imagine that in the back of your squad car."

In addition to which are the side-effects.  Which include elevated core body temperatures, heart problems and muscle deterioration.  This cheap-to-produce and highly addictive drug is beginning to look like yet another problem of potentially huge dimensions for society; for those who use it, suffering its end-effects, and for those who encounter people suffering psychiatric effects of the drug.

It is entirely possible that the Miami man who was shot to death by police who had responded to an emergency call for help when, in broad daylight, in public, that man was seen to be chewing off the face of a homeless man - and when confronted by police, refused to stop - was under its influence.  He succeeded in eating the man's nose, mouth, eyes and cheeks, leaving him in critical condition.

The drug renders to its users superhuman strength.  People using it can become paranoid, hallucinate and be taken with urges to commit horrible violence.  One question remains:  why it is that people choose of their free will to experiment with such dangerous compounds to begin with.