They’re Not Your Grandmother’s Epsom Salts! “Bath Salts” Can Alter Your Mind & Land You In Jail!

There’s nothing more soothing when you’re bruised or aching than to relax in a hot tub with Epsom Salts!  Water breaks the salts down into magnesium and sulfate.  Our grandparents probably used Epsom Salts for arthritis pain, swollen feet as we do today. Epsom Salts were believed to be medicinal as well as a “cure-all” for insomnia and other ailments. But Epsom Salts are not the same as “bath salts,” an illegal drug.

A Story About How Bath Salts Can Affect The User

Three days ago, I read a story in our local Treasure Coast newspaper that proves that “bath salts” can alter your mind.  Case in point:  A twenty-two female named Nastasia Swape, was driving erratically, so much so, that she was driving around stopped cars onto a sidewalk where she killed a New York Federal Judge, Sandra Feuerstein, 75, and struck a boy named Anthony Ovchinnikov at a crosswalk in Boca Raton, Florida.  She then disappeared to nearby Delray Beach where she crashed.  Alive, she told the police that she was Harry Potter.  He found a synthetic drug commonly known as “bath salts” which would explain her behavior.  Nastasia has been charged with vehicular homocide and is in jail.

What Are Bath Salts

Bath Salts are synthetic cathinones.  They are human-made stimulants, related to cathinone, a substance found in the khat plants in East Africa and southern Arabia, where their leaves are chewed for mild stimulant effects.  However, when manufactured, they can be much stronger than the natural products.

They usually take the form of brown or white crystal-like powder and are sold in small foil or plastic packages labelled “not for human consumption.”  They have no legitimate medical use and are marketed as cheap substitutes for other stimulants like amphetamines and cocaine.  Molly (“Ecstasy”) often contain synthetic cathinones instead of MDMA.

How Do People Use Bath Salts?

Bath Salts can be swallowed, snorted, smoked or injected.  You can buy them online and in drug paraphernalia stores under a variety of brand names like Bliss, Cloud Nine, Lunar Wave, Vanilla Sky, and White Lightning.  Users have reported that the drugs trigger uncontrollable urges to repeat the drug.  Because it is addictive, there are strong withdrawal symptoms:

• depression
• anxiety
• tremors
• insomnia
• paranoia
• death

There Is No Medication That Will Treat Addiction To Bath Salts

Synthetic Cathinones have the ability to cause the following:

• increased sociability
• increased sex drive
• hallucinations
• panic attacks
• paranoia
• excited delirium: extreme agitation and violent behavior
• raised heart rate and blood pressure
• chest pain
• kidney failure

Nastasia, most likely has a co-occurring mental health condition that should be diagnosed by a health care provider.  Hopefully, she will receive treatment and behavior therapy.

Source of article: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/synthetic-cathinones-bath-salts