Even after federal and Florida bans, bath salts and synthetic drugs are still in circulation and entering the state from overseas.
Poison control centers received 5,685 calls related to bath salts by this time in 2011, and this year have received 2,468 calls, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. While the number has dropped by more than half, it remains substantial.
Florida House Bill 1175 passed unanimously. It was signed into law in March by Governor Rick Scott, adding 92 variations of bath salts and synthetic marijuana to the list of illegal drugs in Florida, and replaced Senate Bill 1502.
Bath salts, a designer drug, are supposed to be synthetic cocaine. They sell for about $25 a packet, and they don’t show up on most drug tests. More than 20 people have died in Florida from bath salts, according to an examination of bath salts’ impact in Florida by the Tampa Bay Times.
Last July, the U.S. Department of Justice called bath salts an “emerging domestic threat.” They’re known as ‘designer drugs,’ a term for chemicals created in labs across the world that try to mimic the effects of popular illegal drugs.
The circular cat and mouse game chemists play with lawmakers is cyclical, and probably will not stop as long as chemists find new ways to innovate, said Kevin Sopko, a junior studying political science.
Bath salts are known to cause chest pains, agitation, increased heart rate and blood pressure, hallucinations, euphoria, paranoia, and delusions, according to users and the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
The Floridian who was killed by police after attacking and chewing the face off of the homeless man in May turned out to not have bath salts in his system, only marijuana, the natural kind.
Earlier this year in July, President Obama signed a law banning them at a federal level, and DEA agents arrested 90 people in a nationwide bust named “Operation Log Jam,” seizing around five million packets, materials to make 14 million more, and $36 million.
Anyone can go online and order bath salts and synthetic marijuana, and have it shipped overseas to their home.
While poison control centers received only 304 calls in 2010 related to bath salts, in 2011 there were 6,138 calls.
Thomas Thompson, a junior engineering student at UCF, said his friend used to work at one of the factories that produced synthetic marijuana.
“She wasn’t even getting drug tested, she just liked to smoke both spice and weed,” Thompson said, “she had a whole box filled with those little packets.”
Brittany Bridges, a sophomore nursing student, said she heard about bath salts for the first time around May.
“They haven’t done enough to tell people how dangerous these drugs are, it’s just been super hyped by the media,” Bridges said.
Bath salts and synthetic drugs such as K-2 and Explosion, are labeled “not for human consumption,” however legitimate use is rare. Drew Fedorka, a first year graduate history student, said it is hard to balance the rights of users with citizens’ safety.
“It’s difficult to resolve, because on the one hand some guy doing these drugs in his house not bothering anyone is fine, but it seems like these drugs can go really wrong and they end up harming other people,” Fedorka said.
The University of Central Florida’s own police department has not encountered any incidents involving synthetic substances and/or bath salts, according to their records and evidence division.
Bath salts are actually synthetic cathinones, very similar to amphetamines. Cathinones are found in the Khat plant, native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Chewing these plants is a custom to many communities there. Methcathinone, similar to cathinone the same way methamphetamine is chemically similar to amphetamine, was used as an antidepressant in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s, and recreationally in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s.
Synthetic cannabis, marketed as K-2, Spice, Mr. Nice-Guy, etc., is an herbal mixture sprayed with designer drugs, and mimic the effects of marijuana, although usually being more potent and far less safe.
Dr. John Huffman, the Clemson University organic chemistry professor whose 1995 paper detailed the method and ingredients to make synthetic cannabinoids, told MSNBC anyone who used the synthetic drugs were “idiots.”
Use hasn’t gone down enough because the government’s policy of blanket banning these drugs doesn’t eradicate use, it just encourages people who want to use them to look elsewhere, in this case online, said Dylan Kelly, a senior at UCF studying English.
“People turn to these drugs because they have problems going on around them and in their lives, and instead of trying to ban the drugs, we should be trying to fix the reasons people turn to these hard drugs,” Kelly said.
