Bath salts, bad taste!

Bath salts, bad taste!

It is a bitter pill to take. It is bitter in the sense that it is the modern-day reality. It is what the society is battling to cage. Bath salts have ravaged and vanquished so many young Americans in the recent past. The recent sordid and unsavory story about bath salts is that of a 24 year old Florida man by name Randy Eugene who chopped off the face of a 64 year man Ronal Poppo on May 26^th, 2012 due to high inhalation of (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/05/31/erin-new-pics-bath-salt-cannibal.cnn?iref=allsearch) bath salts. In Colorado, the strangulation death of a 19-year-old man could be linked to the emerging threat posed by the ingestion of bath salts (http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_20762986/bath-salt-drugs-called-emerging-threat-colo).

What bath salt is not? Bath salt is never bath salt. It is not anything close to the name. What bath salt is? Bath salt is a stimulant that is sold under the guise of bath salt or plant food. It has so many other names like bloom, blue silk, cloud nine, Hurricane Charlie, Ivory Wave, Lunar Wave, Ocean Snow, Red Dove, Scarface, Vanilla Sky, White Lightning, Zoom and others. Clinically, it is known as Mephedrone commonly known as MCAT, 4-MMC, meow meow, meph, and drone. It is sold in retail stores, gas stations and over the internet.

Bath salts pose an increasing public health risk in the United States, with reports of toxicity and mortality increasing along with calls to poison centers throughout the United States (Olives, Orozco, & Stellpflug, 2012). According to reports, as at 2011, the poison centers across the US took over 370 calls about bath salts. In the Carolinas, the Carolinas Poison Center has taken more than 300 calls about bath salts in the first 6 months of 2011 (http://www.ncpoisoncenter.org/body.cfm?id=282).
The use of this killer salt is globally spreading. A recent survey of young adult “clubbers” in England revealed that 33.6% of respondents had used mephedrone in the past month (Olives, et al., 2012). Reports of deaths caused by the inhalation or sniffing of mephedrone litter popular media outlets (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11025849), (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/18/john-sterling-smith-mephedrone-death), and (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7535222/Legal-high-mephedrone-linked-with-26-deaths-in-UK.html).
My worry is that youths in the developing countries like Nigeria might begin to mimic this unconscionable habit. It is important, therefore, that authorities in these countries should begin to take measures that will make it difficult to either purchase mephedrone online by individuals or put a ban on importation of this stimulant that adds no value to the society. Because bath salts endanger the lives of people, this substance should be banned.

References

Nordqvist, C. (2011). Recreational drugs sold as bath salts causing serious public health concern, USA. Retrieved from, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles231241.php.

Olives, T.D., Orozco, B.S., & Stellpflug, S.J. (2012). Bath salts: the ivory wave of trouble. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, XIII (1): 58-62.