Politics & Government

Maryland Pulling Plug on Dangerous 'Bath Salt'

"Getting ahead of the curve" on burgeoning public health menace.

Maryland public health officials are taking steps to criminalize “bath salts” – synthetic stimulant drugs that mimic the action of cocaine and meth – which emerged in 2010 and are a burgeoning substance abuse problem.

Using its authority to classify material as controlled and dangerous substances, the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene declared that bath salts will be illegal in Maryland on Sept. 1.

“We’re trying to get ahead of the curve on this,” said Tom Cargiulo, director of the Maryland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration.

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Marketed in small plastic or foil packages with names like Ivory Wave, Blue Silk, Vanilla Sky, Cloud Nine and Bliss, bath salts can be smoked, snorted or injected.

Aside from the stimulating and euphoric effects, bath salts are linked with serious side effects including an excessively rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, paranoia, psychosis, and agitation and delirium that can last for days.

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“Bath salts are dangerous chemicals,” Cargiulo said. “If you use them, you may die. We’ve had at least one death in Maryland, and that’s one death too many.”

Public health officials are alarmed by the rise in calls about bath salts to poison control centers. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, hotlines have so far this year received 4,137 calls about bath salts as of July 31, compared to 303 calls during 2010.

No calls about bath salts were received by poison control centers in 2009, according to AAPCC spokesperson Loreeta Canton.

In 2011, the Maryland Poison Center has received 33 calls about bath salts as of Aug. 4, according to director Bruce D. Anderson.

“We have not been hit nearly as hard as other parts of the country,” he said. “We know from speaking with colleagues that bath salts are a much worse problem in other places” such as Louisiana, Florida and Michigan.

Anderson said that one poison center in Louisiana received more than 100 calls about bath salt exposures during the month of December, 2010.

According to a May 18 report from Grand Rapids, bath salts sent 65 people to hospitals in Michigan and caused at least one death within the preceding six months.

As a drug of abuse, bath salts are not as popular as some, but the drug's potential for lethality sets it apart from the others.

According to police, the drug most commonly encountered by Baltimore County officers is marijuana, followed by prescription drugs such as oxycontin.

Among those who seek treatment for substance abuse in Maryland, the drug of choice is alcohol throughout the state except for Baltimore City, where the top drug of those in rehab is heroin, according to Cargiulo. Marijuana is second.

In July, state health officials asked county heath departments to survey head shops, gas stations and other places where drug paraphernalia is sold to look for bath salts. Out of 400 locations across Maryland, bath salts were found for sale at three shops–one each in Baltimore County, Harford County and Cecil County, according to Cargiulo.

Cargiulo declined to identify the stores selling bath salts to avoid a run on the product similar to the lead-up to the state’s ban on Four Loko. Bath salts have not yet been implicated in a criminal case in Baltimore County, according to police.

“It hasn’t hit the criminal justice side yet because bath salts are still legal,” Cargiulo said. “We’re just starting to hear about it.”

That will change on Sept. 1, when Maryland joins a growing list of states outlawing bath salts.

However, drug and public health experts said that bath salts and related compounds will continue to be a problem since they are available over the internet and can easily be chemically modified to circumvent the law.

“The chemical structure can be changed,” Cargiulo said. “It’s simple kitchen chemistry; make a few changes that just lets them get around the law.”


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