Nearly two weeks after federal drug enforcers announced the ban of ingredients used to make a synthetic drug known as “bath salts,” doctors worry that smoke shops and convenience stores may unload the dangerous drug at cut-rate prices before the ban takes effect next month.
The Drug Enforcement Administration announced on Sept. 7 that it would use its emergency authority to ban three chemical ingredients to protect the public from “imminent hazard.” That ban takes effect the first week of October.
More than a half-dozen metro Phoenix smoke shops contacted by The Arizona Republic said they still carry the powdery substance sold in small jars or vials under names such as Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave or Bliss. One smoke shop advertised a discount deal to buy one vial and get a second for 50 percent off through the end of September.
Though called bath salts, the synthetic drugs aren’t found in salts used for bathing.
“I worry that we will see a spike in (use and sales)” of the drug until that ban takes effect, said Jason Caplan, chairman of the department of psychiatry at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.
Though other designer drugs, such as a marijuanalike substance known as spice, have found their way into smoke shops, perhaps no synthetic substance has alarmed poison centers and emergency-room physicians over the past year as much as “bath salts.”
Users smoke, ingest or inject the drug to create a high that has been compared to cocaine or methamphetamine. Law enforcement and doctors say the drug can also cause hallucinations similar to drugs such as LSD and PCP, even triggering acts of violence.
The Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center Poison and Drug Information Center has reported 173 cases of people who used or were exposed to the drug in metro Phoenix so far this year, compared with just one case a year ago. Despite the federal ban announced this month, the Banner poison center has fielded 23 reports of such use this month.
Doctors and poison-control officials say those reported cases likely represent a fraction of how often the drug is used. Though there are no firm nationwide statistics on “bath salt” use, there have been a handful of reported deaths tied to the drug.
Arizona hospitals and the Banner poison center said there are no known deaths from “bath salt” use in Arizona, but several patients required lifesaving procedures for kidney failure and trouble at Valley hospitals, doctors say.
“We’ve never seen an influx to the emergency room like we have with ‘bath salts,’ ” Caplan said. “We have seen the bad effects, the adverse effects.”
Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency-room physician and co-medical director of the Banner poison center, said he had to put five patients under general anesthesia and on breathing machines on a recent weekend. Each time he would ease the sedation, the “bath salt” users would wake up agitated and aggressive, prompting more sedation.
People can suffer immediate health risks such as kidney damage, breathing trouble, seizures, rapid heart rate and extreme body temperature.
LoVecchio said that because the synthetic drug is so new to the public, a lot of users experiment with dosing.
That could lead to more severe medical problems and overdosing.
“The thing that troubles me is nobody really knows the dose,” LoVecchio said. “If they do cocaine, they know if they do this amount of cocaine, they get high. With ‘bath salts,’ it’s unclear.”
In July, police arrested a Chandler man on suspicion of burning his son’s hand after the boy touched the man’s Bible. Chandler police said the 25-year-old man was under the influence of “bath salts.” Police recovered three vials of the drug and other paraphernalia at his house.
Sheila Poke, Yavapai County attorney, wrote in a recent Republic guest column that a Verde Valley woman’s teenage daughter nearly died of using “bath salts.” The girl lost 35 pounds and suffered physical affects such as bleeding from the mouth and nose, according to Poke.
There have been more than one dozen chemical compounds used to make “bath salts,” LoVecchio said. The DEA’s ban applies to three of the more commonly used compounds: mephedrone, methylone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also called MDPV.
Caplan said that mephedrone has been a popular drug in the United Kingdom and other countries. “Bath salts” contain properties that are similar to the khat shrubs found in Eastern Africa.
People in Eastern African and the Arabian Peninsula chew the leaves of these plants as a potent stimulant.
Although the DEA will ban the three ingredients used to make “bath salts” next month, Caplan said he worries that head shops, convenience stores and Internet sites that sell the stimulant will slash prices and that users will snap up existing “bath salt” supplies this month.
The Iron Lung Smoke Shop, 15001 N. Cave Creek Road, posted the following Internet ad on the website of a Phoenix-based weekly newspaper: Buy one, get one-half off “bath salts.”
A person who answered the phone said that smoke shop charges $24.99 per gram.
When asked why the shop was running an ad, the store attendant referred all calls to the store’s owner, Ozzie, who hung up on The Republic.
Another Iron Lung smoke shop on 16th Street in Phoenix has a sign painted on its window advertising bath salts, blunts, pipes, bongs, potpourri and other items.
Caplan, of St. Joseph’s Hospital, said he worries that the impact of the ban will be fleeting as chemists cook up new compounds that are slightly different but still powerful enough to entice users.
“It’s certainly hard to stay on the leading edge of this stuff,” Caplan said. “We will ban this, and something else will come and take its place.”
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