Pubdate: Mon, 09 May 2011
Source: News-Sentinel, The (Fort  Wayne, IN)
Copyright: 2011 The News-Sentinel
Contact: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/contact_us/feedback_np1/
Website: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1077
Author: Bob Rinearson, The News-Sentinel

OUTLAW 'BATH SALTS' NOW; THEIR THREAT IS LEGAL, CHEAP AND
DEADLY

Once again, we have been duped by the dealers -- the dealers of drugs,
that is.

And of course in their wake will follow all the special interests,
including the users who wish no interference in their quest to do
whatever drugs they desire without the law breathing down their necks.

There are the thinkers, who have never experienced personally the
impact that drugs have on our young, yet try to make the status of
drug usage of an intellectual exercise much in the same manner in
which they debate the existence of God.

Then there are the judges and the politicians, who stand by the
wayside and utter few objections while the pro drug lobbies continue
to spew their misrepresentations while turning their heads the other
way every time a young person is found dead of an overdose.

But on they rant, suggesting falsely that if we decriminalize drugs,
the dealer will fall by the wayside, drug use will be safer and the
government will make more money that can be put toward funding
education. We heard many of the same empty promises when the push was
on to legalize gambling.

But drugs are far more than the personal entertainment that the
supporters of legalization cry out for. The risks are far beyond what
positive results can be gained by those with cancer or nasal
infections. Illegal drugs are in reality more about the destruction of
personal willpower, the breakup of families and addictions. And they
are about an attitude.

That attitude is about the seeking of the new and better high. They
are always seeking a new drug better than the last. And if out of the
gate, the dealers can fool the public and have their wares dealt
legally before the legislators can figure out what hit them, all the
better and more profitable.

Remember K2, also known as Spice. When it hit the stores, often being
sold behind gas station counters, mostly there were no restrictions.
Reportedly, you had to be 18 in order to purchase. However, upon
understanding the deep moral convictions, or rather the lack thereof,
on behalf of those behind the counters, locally children as young as
11 were able to buy the product without the worry of being checked.

When K2 arrived on the scene, it was advertised as an incense. Despite
that it had already been outlawed in many European countries, America,
being the land of open opportunity that it is, embraced it with open
arms. That is, until our children started turning up in car accidents
or dead as a result of digesting the hallucinogenic.

Of course, the manufacturers of K2 purposely made the product with a
variety of herbal byproducts in order to purposely deceive the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration.

Ultimately, K2 was discovered to be nothing more than synthetic
cannabis, and belatedly the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency did declare
many of the components in K2 illegal.

But rust never sleeps. Just as soon as one dangerous drug or synthetic
psychoactive product is dealt with, along comes another.

Perhaps you have already heard of Bath Salts, also sold under the
names Plant Food, Ivory Wave and Hurricane Charlie. It is not a
soothing mineral that you put in the bath to relax, but a disguised
drug to be smoked or snorted.

Mehmet Oz, also known as Dr. Oz, host of the syndicated TV series,
wrote an article for Time magazine describing how he went underground
in order to better understand how the drug was being sold. As he
portrayed the ease of buying the drug, he said, "There were no
back-alley drug dealers, no lowered voices or code words -- just a
small-business owner making a sale."

The main ingredients in Bath Salts are mephedrone and
Methylenedioxypyrovalerone. These drugs, according to Oz, can give the
affects of ecstasy, yet are "much more toxic." They produce
hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts.

Fox News shared the story of a longtime drug dealer who, after getting
high off Bath Salts, proceeded to slash his stomach and face. It also
told of a 21-year-old Louisiana man who, after using the drug, "cut
his throat and ended his life with a gunshot."

Many states are already reacting by outlawing Bath
Salts.

Both Fort Wayne and Indiana waited much too long before banning K2. We
cannot afford to wait to act against Bath Salts. As Dr. Oz stated in
the Time article, "Kids everywhere are in danger from this substance,
and the threat is legal, cheap and very deadly."

So what are you waiting for, Hoosiers?
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.