Fake drugs, real consequences

[sleeves]

Fake drugs, real consequences

It’s known by several names — herbal incense, K2, Spice, Happy Shaman are just a few —- and drug users learned long ago that smoking it gives a similar affect to marijuana with no fear of failing a drug test.

And a product called bath salts isn’t something to provide a soothing bath. Snort this powder and you’ll get a high similar to cocaine.

Both products are legal to purchase and use, but they are also wreaking havoc on many users who wind up in the hospital for days to detox from the fake drugs. Officials say these products are more potent and have a greater or intensified effect than the compounds they mimic.

“Bath salts gives you a methscaline/ecstasy type high,” said Washington County Sheriff’s Sgt. Sam Phillips Jr. Users also reportedly compare the effects to using cocaine.

“You have hallucinations. You can look at a tree and instead of seeing the tree, you hear the tree. You can listen to music and instead of hearing the music, you see the music,” Phillips said.

The herbal incense products are the “lesser of the two evils (compared to bath salts),” he said, but still are a big problem.

“Our biggest problem used to be OxyContin and roxycontin. Now this is our biggest problem because it’s legal to buy.”

When a user experiences the hallucinations or needs the drug and can’t get it, he or she can become violent toward friends and families, Phillips said.

“We’re getting most of our contacts from people who have taken it and family members who can’t deal with them rationally,” he said.

“We have to subdue them until we get medical on scene so they can tranquilize them out.”

Dr. Dan Ross, an ER physician at Mountain States Health Alliance, said he noticed a rise in the number of bath salt users needing emergency treatment about a year ago.

“Bath salts is a potent synthetic stimulant,” he said. It binds several chemical receptors in the brain simultaneously, resulting in the user becoming “agitated, hyper, tachycardic, psychotic. It’s similar to meth or cocaine,” Ross said.

The drug is snorted, smoked or ingested.

Treating someone on the drug can be difficult, because there are no guidelines on the treatment protocol, Ross said.

“There’s no test for it. You have to depend on your suspicions or they may tell you,” what they’ve used, he said.

It’s a scene played out over and over all across the Tri-Cities. But it doesn’t just affect the users and their families.

Several Johnson City businesses located near one local smoke shop have also experienced negative effects.

Joe Rieger, who owns Sandy’s Jewel Box on Oakland Avenue, said he reopened his store after the usual January off and learned of some changes in the neighborhood.

“There’s a shop on the street selling the synthetic drug. People are coming by the boatloads all hours of the day,” Rieger said.

He’s talking about Cloud 9, which another business owner said opened a couple of months ago.

Brandy Miller, owner of Inspire Hair Color Studio, has been amazed at Cloud 9’s apparent success since it opened.

“There’s a hundred cars in and out of here every hour,” she estimated. “There are children in the car. They leave them in the car or they’ll take them into the store with them,” she said.

Miller said many Cloud 9 patrons use her parking lot — there’s only four sparking spaces at the smoke shop — for parking as well as using their purchase.

“They’re snorting it in the parking lot and they don’t care that you’re watching them,” she said. And people enter her shop to ask for money.

Miller’s hair salon is already losing customers because of the questionable activity, she said.

“Several customers said they will not be back,” she said. Miller’s shop has been at the same location for three years, but since Cloud 9 opened she’s considered closing down because she can’t afford to move.

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?id=98058

 

[highhooked]

" A legal drug that is literally killing people!"

Hmm alcohol, nicotine. Pretty sure both of these substances make the deaths by designer drugs look like nothing. Its all social stigma because people are snorting the drug everyone gets all worked up about it. You like to enjoy alcohol and a cig to relax and some people enjoy designer drugs. Have a fucking open mind and lay off what other people do. God damn. It should be a simple right to consume what we choose.

 

[23536]

Thanks for contributing, sleeves. Please format threads according to this forum's guidelines, which are in my sig. I tweaked your post a bit to include some of the article's text, and I deleted the second article. Feel free to post that one in a separate post in this thread, or in a separate thread. Again, thanks for contributing!

 

[23536]

The proposed legislation will cover “anything that is designed to alter the chemical compounds,” of the nervous system, Lundberg said.

This sounds so fucking uncouth. And evil. Heaven forbid people alter the chemical compounds of their nervous systems!

 

[f33lg00d]

^so does that make food illegal?

 

[Pjkt2501]

“Bath salts gives you a methscaline/ecstasy type high,” said Washington County Sheriff’s Sgt.

Wtf is methscaline?

"It binds several chemical receptors in the brain simultaneously, resulting in the user becoming “agitated, hyper, tachycardic, psychotic."

"Binds to several chemical receptors" - also wtf. Pretty much every chemical we take in binds to multiple fcking receptors.

 

[Tripman]

Instead of hearing the music, you see the music.

Damn, I want what he's having.

 

[zekethemusicman]

Wow this is a terrible fucking piece. I should know because i live in washington county lol. Soooo many people do the "bath salts" haha wat a stupid name. I never thought i would say this though, but damn i have seen alot of peeps affected negatively by this shit. And much more common and faster than most other illegal drugs. Shit really is bad here. I wish cocaine were legal, otherwise its possible these bath salt compounds would only be around on paper and very few people would be doing them. People just have no information to go on with these chemicals and given their nature to turn to abuse very quickly it makes a bad combo. If cocaine was here and good this shit would not be around.