Report shows “Bath Salts” drugs involved in nearly 23,000 emergency department visits in one year

[Emit]

SAMHSA News Release

Date: 9/17/2013

Report shows that “Bath Salts” drugs were involved in nearly 23,000 emergency department visits in one year

A new national report reveals that “bath salts,” a group of drugs containing amphetamine-type stimulants, were linked to an estimated 22,904 visits to hospital emergency departments in 2011. The report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the first national study to track bath salts drugs to hospital emergency department visits since these drugs emerged a few years ago.

“Although bath salts drugs are sometimes claimed to be ‘legal highs’ or are promoted with labels to mask their real purpose, they can be extremely dangerous when used,” said Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, SAMHSA’s chief medical officer. “Bath salts drugs can cause heart problems, high blood pressure, seizures, addiction, suicidal thoughts, psychosis and, in some cases, death – especially when combined with the use of other drugs.”

The SAMHSA report shows that about two-thirds (67 percent) of emergency department visits involving bath salts also involved the use of another drug. Only 33 percent of the bath salts-related visits to emergency departments involved just the use of bath salts; 15 percent of the visits involved combined use with marijuana or synthetic forms of marijuana, and 52 percent involved the use of other drugs.

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http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/1309160554.aspx



The war on drugs has been an abject, costly failure. I would like to see the criminal aspect of abuse/addiction taken out of the equation and all that money that is spent on law enforcement, jail and prison be spent on education, prevention, universal health care, family support, early education, welfare, food stamps, individual & family counseling, rehabilitation, education, prenatal care, family planning, giving people a leg up, etc. We need to funnel more time, effort and money into why people use, abuse and become addicted to drugs (e.g., the underlying social crisis) rather than penalize them after the fact for doing so. Drug and alcohol addictions are a social problem and they must be addressed with proactive social solutions not through authoritarian methods like military tactics aka "war." <end soapbox>

[Revanchist]

1. Help me understand

Are you for the decriminalizing of all narcotics? I could get behind some of the 'natural' ones such as pot, hash, mushrooms, peyote, and maybe even heroin but this synthetic junk? Sorry, no, drugs like bath salts, et al. are just poison and shouldn't be used by anyone. A good example is the Russian designer drug Krokodil that literally causes your skin and muscle to rot away http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/seriously-dont-use-krokodil (view at your own risk) need to remain illegal.

[fletchthedubs]

7. Krokodil is not a designer drug

It's used by the poorest of the poor. No one with money would even try the stuff.

[Revanchist]

8. Several websites refer to it as a designer drug, same with bathsalts

from freedictonary.com:

designer drug
n
1. (Law / Recreational Drugs) any of various narcotic or hallucinogenic substances manufactured illegally from a range of chemicals

They can be cheap and nasty, it just means they were cooked up in a lab instead of occurring naturally.

[Sunlei]

2. that bath salt & synthetic MJ crap is bad stuff. war on drugs is a failure!!

[nebenaube]

4. None of which would exist...

If marijuana was not a scheduled drug.

[BlueToTheBone]

3. This is what happens when you ban cannabis

People are hard wired to get high and when denied what won't hurt the body, people search out other things and here is the result. I wonder how many of their lives didn't get put back together. This is of course JMHO.

[Sunlei]

5. not even want of other drugs. people want some real MJ & get ripped off with dangerous synthetic MJ

If MJ turned back into an herb, (even regulated) people would have some recourse when they're poisoned.

[Hydra]

6. We're a society obsessed with punishment

Rather than doing the boring things that make everyone's lives better, we'd rather do hateful and nasty things that are "fun" to the people who "deserve it."