DEA : hallucinogens legally sold as 'bath salts' a new threat

There's a new designer drug that's raising alarm with authorities around the country. It's referred to as "bath salts," but it's really a dangerous stimulant with effects akin to cocaine or meth.

While relatively unheard of just a couple of years ago, its use is on the rise and it's believed to have caused at least four deaths around the country.

The $20 packets are available in corner stores, truck stops and on the Internet, and marketed as bath salts or sometimes plant food and come with the (often-ignored) disclaimer, "not for human consumption." They're not subject to regulation even though they contain various potent chemicals, including mephedrone, which is a stimulant.

"It's a derivative that's very similar to amphetamines, and its side effects are largely the same side effects we see with amphetamines in large dose," said Jeffrey Baldwin, professor of pharmacy practice and pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which seems not to have experienced this scourge -- at least not yet. "[Those side effects] would be increased heart rate and blood pressure, not sleeping, not eating and eventually becoming paranoid."

The "salts" come with gentle-sounding names like Ivory Wave and Vanilla Sky and are typically snorted, smoked, injected and even mixed with water as a beverage.

Bath salts contain manmade chemicals like mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV, also known as substituted cathinones. Both drugs are related to khat, an organic stimulant found in Arab and East African countries that is illegal in the United States.

Before hitting this country, bath salts swept Britain, which banned them in April 2010. Experts say much of the supply is coming from China and India, where chemical manufacturers have less government oversight.

They are labeled “not for human consumption,” which helps them skirt the federal Analog Act, under which any substance “substantially similar” to a banned drug is deemed illegal if it is intended for consumption.