Scientists Say Bath Salts Are Ten Times Stronger Than Yayo

Research on the street drug known as “bath salts” has uncovered some disturbing findings…

via UK Daily Mail:

As lethal bath salts continue to take young lives, researchers have discovered the shocking strength of a key ingredient that leaves users struggling with the after effects for days.

MDPV, commonly found in the street drug is ten times stronger than “yayo”, according to the National Science Foundation.

It causes users to become paranoid, violent and agitated, at times leading to hallucinations.

But unlike with other drugs, such as “yayo” or “molly,” doctors are noticing a worrying trend of people suffering these symptoms for days after snorting the legal high.

‘They’re selling time bombs,’ Louisiana Poison Control Center Director Dr. Mark Ryan told ABC News.

‘We’ve had some people show up who are complaining of chest pains so severe that they think they’re having a heart attack. They think they’re dying.

They have extreme paranoia. They’re having hallucinations. They see things, they hear things, monsters, demons, aliens.’

One such victim was 21-year-old Dickie Sanders.

He suffered severe hallucinations after snorting a packet of bath salts, labelled ‘Cloud Nine’, became convinced he was being hunted by police and sliced at his throat with a kitchen knife.

Saunders survived his horrific injuries, returning home with stitches and telling his mother: ‘I can’t handle what this drug has done to me. I’m never going to touch anything again.’

The side effects persisted, Saunders’ father ended up having to sleep beside him, holding his son in his arms and trying to comfort him.

He eventually calmed and drifted off to sleep.

But hours later, suddenly and without warning, Saunders left the protective arms of his father and in the midst of another psychotic episode shot himself with a rifle.

As Saunders’ tragic became mirrored in more and more incidents across the country, Ryan compiled a database of every bath salts-related case in Louisiana, hit especially hard by the problem, and Kentucky.

Ryan noticed that upon snorting the powder, labelled with names including Hurricane Charlie, NOLA Diamond and Bayou Ivory Flower, users all suffered repetitive psychotic episodes.

‘Some patients were in the hospital for 5 days, 10 days, 14 days,’ Ryan said. ‘In some cases, they were under heavy sedation. As you try to taper off the sedation, the paranoia came back and the delusions.’

‘MDPV is irreversible, it won’t let go,’ his colleague Louise De Felice said. ‘I don’t know of any other drug that has that same feature of not allowing you to escape from it.’

Scientists ran tests to try to determine the drug’s chemistry, finding it to be laced with MDPV, ten times the potency of cocaine.

The dangerous combination of the drug’s ingredients ‘flood the brain,’ they said, leading to repeated episodes of psychotic behaviour.

In December the Louisiana Poison Centre received more than 110 calls about bath salts, compared with four in October and 24 in November. That trend was being mirrored all around the states.

Drastic measures were taken early January to ban the five ingredients commonly found in bath salts products: MDPV and mephedrone, methylone, methedrone and flephedrone.

What’s worrying is that drug makers have simply tweaked the formula, skirting around the law.

‘What [drugmakers] are looking for is the side effects,’ said Jimmy Guidry, Louisiana State Health officer. ‘They just have to change the chemistry, and they’ve got something that’s not on the list, and it’s not illegal. They continue to make it legal to have these horrible side effects.’

‘It’s like that arcade game Whac-a-Mole,’ Ryan added. ‘Every time you think you’ve got a handle on it — boom — it pops up in three different places.’

We never planned on trying bath salts in the first place, but this information is even more disturbing than we imagined — there is a drug that people can’t come down from — the side effects of this isht is PERMANENT! It seems like users either end up killing themselves or others before it’s all said and done.

That said — who is making this stuff? Clearly not your average neighborhood drug dealer… So how did something that was made in a lab get into the hands of all these people across the country? That’s what we really want to know!