The lengths an addict will travel to achieve a desired high is tantamount to someone dying of thirst searching for water - as far as it takes. There is just about nothing an addict will not try if they believe that it will make them intoxicated, even poisons will be consumed if there is even the slightest chance that it will make people high. Drug abusers around the country have been turning up in emergency rooms in large numbers because of snorting and ingesting fake bath salts, fake fertilizer or fake insect repellent. On Wednesday, Mark Ryan, head of the Louisiana Poison Center said, "at least 84 people around Louisiana have been hospitalized because of paranoia, fighting, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts and physical effects such as hypertension and rapid heartbeat — most for a day or two but at least three of them for weeks".
There is talk on the Internet that leads people to believe that snorting bath salts is like doing cocaine or methamphetamine, only legal. Unfortunately, what people are experiencing, even seasoned addicts, is a lot more intense than the illegal drugs they were acquainted with. "These are experienced drug users ... There's a lot of things they'll suffer for the drug high they're looking for," said Henry A. Spiller, director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in Louisville. "Even these people are coming into the emergency room. Even they can't handle these fairly nasty effects."
An E.R. doctor in Covington lost her stepson because of the dangerous side effects of bath salts. Julie Sanders said her stepson, 21-year-old Dickie Sanders, committed suicide only three days after sniffing bath salts, which people are calling "Cloud 9", just one of the names under which methylenedioxypyrovalerone (METH-uh-leen-di-OX-ee-PY-ro-VAL-uh-rone) or MDVP, is sold under. MDVP can be purchased at Head shops or gas stations around the country and on the Internet as well, poisons centers around the country have already had 160 calls because of these dangerous products.
Source:
MSNBC
