'Bath salts' still legal in S.C. but work like heavy-duty drugs

A new designer drug that has been gaining popularity in South Carolina and the Southeast has been criminalized in North Carolina and Florida and may soon be in South Carolina if Pee Dee law enforcement officers have their way.

The synthetic drug, known euphemistically as “bath salts” or sometimes as plant food, are marketed under a variety of innocuous titles such as “White Rush,” “Ivory Wave” and “Vanilla Sky.” A recent edition, hoping to cash in some recent headlines, is called “Charlie Sheene.”

Designer drugs are drugs that have been synthetically altered in order to circumvent the anti-drug laws already in place in the U.S.

Although commonly referred to as bath salts, these substances are unrelated to compounds used in the bathtub for skincare purposes. Bath salts are most often made of the chemical methylenedioxypyrovalerone — also known as MDPV — and are chemically similar to methamphetamines, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And they’re a problem for public safety officials. The drug is easy to obtain and it can cause serious health problems, but, at least for the time being, it’s legal to buy and use in South Carolina.

Darlington Police Capt. Danny Watson said it’s difficult to do anything about the substance because it is legal. He said the Darlington Police Department refers any cases of bath salts abuse to the Darlington County Combined Drug Unit.

Watson also said that the drug was harmful and warned against putting “…anything in your body not prescribed by your doctor or approved by the FDA.”

Bath salts are being used in South Carolina and the Pee Dee.

Johnna Shirley, director of Marketing and Public Relations for Carolina Pines Medical Center said the medical center has seen 15 to 20 cases recently in its emergency room.  She said there could have been more, but in each of the cases they are aware of the patient told the staff that hr or she had taken bath salt. 

“Because it does not show up on a drug test, we don’t know unless they tell us,” said Shirley. “ We have had patients who have shown extreme agitation and hyperactivity to those who have ended up in the ICU on a ventilator.  We have had some other unusual cases through the emergency that (the staff)  thought were probably bath salts cases, but could not be confirmed.”

Jill Michels of the Palmetto Poison Control Center said there have been 35 cases of poisoning involving bath salts reported to the center since the beginning of the year. This is a radical increase from the only two reported cases statewide for the entire year in 2010.

Cindy Shipman, the Darlington County CAST coordinator with Rubicon Inc., said she has been told by at least two parents that they had become aware of their children purchasing bath salts over the counter at convenience stores in Hartsville.

Darlington County Sheriff J.W. Byrd said he knew of “five or six cases (in Darlington County) within the last month” involving the drug and said that bath salts “have the potential to be a big problem.” Police and EMS personnel can only render medical aid to users because bath salts are legal to purchase and use.

The problem is serious enough that it’s led to bans in more than of half the states in the country. North Carolina became one of the most recent states to ban the drug. The Tar Heel ban took effect in April.

For now, it’s still legal in South Carolina and easy to find.

Darlington County Sheriff’s Capt. Andy Locklair said the one-gram packages of bath salts are often obtained at convenience stores for as little as $25. Users get high typically from inhaling the drug, but cases of intravenous injections have also been reported according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Most packages of the substance state they are not for human consumption.

Symptoms of using bath salts include vivid hallucinations and panic attacks, said Clyde Nance of Florence’s Circle Park Behavioral Health Services. Two radically different responses are known to occur in bath salts users. They can be violent and uncontrolled or they can be completely unresponsive. Users can also switch back and forth between the two states, Nance said. In some instances, users of the drug have been known to experience suicidal tendencies and cause self-inflicted bodily harm. According to the DEA, “there have been reports of cravings for MDPV by users,” so the substance is habit-forming.

Bath salts are already banned and given the classification of a schedule 1 drug — a drug having no legitimate medical use — in states where they are banned.

Byrd and Locklair said they are pushing to make bath salts illegal in South Carolina. The Darlington County Sheriff’s Office is working with the legislative delegation, and, in turn, the General Assembly, to ban the sale of bath salts in South Carolina and make them illegal to use. It may not happen quickly because there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the drug both from the legislature and from law enforcement officials.

The Messenger editor Bob Sloan contributed to this story.