Pubdate: Sun, 04 Nov 2012
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2012 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://thechronicleherald.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Aaron Beswick

PICTOU COUNTY BATTLES BACK AGAINST BATH SALTS ADDICTION

Fewer victims arriving at detox now

Pictou County is coming to terms with bath salts.

The drug addiction that hit this pocket of northern Nova Scotia like 
wildfire this spring has been wrangled down to a smouldering burn.

In April, area emergency rooms were seeing four to five cases of 
strung-out bath salts users a week.

"A lot of folks were using them non-stop for a week or two at a 
time," said Greg Purvis, director of addictions services for the 
Pictou and Cumberland health authorities.

"As a stimulant, it's about four times as strong as Ritalin. So these 
people weren't eating or sleeping for a week or two at a time. 
Basically, the hospital would sedate them and then turn them over to us."

In detox, the drug users would eat and sleep, and a few would allow 
themselves to be directed toward community rehabilitation programs.

"It was scary," said Purvis.

Now the detox unit is seeing an average of one bath salts user every two weeks.

The slowdown has a couple causes, not least of which is a growing 
understanding among users of how to mitigate the consequences of 
using bath salts, Purvis said.

"We're not hearing about them injecting it anymore," he said. "This 
is a select group that goes for this drug, they are users who are 
comfortable with higher risk drugs and they've learned to use it in 
doses and ways to make it less likely to end with psychotic episodes."

Until early October, the active ingredient in bath salts, 
methylenedioxypyrovalerone, more commonly known as MDPV, was legal in Canada.

MDPV blocks the neural receptors that take up naturally produced 
chemicals in the brain. The chemicals, norepinephrine and dopamine, 
are connected with our fight or flight responses and pleasure 
feelings. When the receptors are blocked, the chemicals overflow in 
our brain causing extremes of both feelings, along with the potential 
for psychotic reactions.

Purvis said he suspects the drug took off in Pictou County because 
there were local producers ordering MDPV over the Internet and 
manufacturing bath salts.

The resulting surplus of cheap drugs and users unaccustomed to using 
them resulted in April's seeming epidemic.

On Monday, Pictou County RCMP made their first arrests under the new 
legislation that lists MDPV as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, 
which means those possessing or trafficking it face the same 
consequences as those who deal cocaine and heroine.

At a traffic stop Tuesday on Pictou Landing Road, RCMP arrested two 
men from Eureka and a woman from Pictou Landing and seized bath 
salts, marijuana and hydromorphone contin. The next morning police 
searched a Eureka home where they arrested another man and woman and 
seized more bath salts.

While bath salts may be here to stay, Const. Bryce Haight of the 
Pictou County RCMP said the new legislation, along with a concerted 
effort by police and provincial health officials, are reining it in.

"Any amount of a drug is bad," cautioned Haight. "This drug is so 
highly addictive that any amount of exposure usually results in 
addiction. But everyone got on board to bring this under control and 
keep it from becoming a wider problem."

Rev. Keith Hazzard is on the front line of the battle against addiction.

Since converting the Pentecostal church in New Glasgow to a winter 
shelter and providing a free breakfast program, Hazzard has gotten to 
know the lives of those suffering from addictions. He's also watched 
bath salts consume the lives of people he has come to care for.

"There'll be glimpses of hope and someone will get clean for a few 
weeks. But because of the damage they've done to themselves and their 
inability to find a job, they get bored," said Hazzard.

"Then there's a moment of weakness and they're back on it again."

He'd like to see more organized efforts to get people back to work or 
into the volunteer sector, where healthier activities could fill the 
space in the lives of former addicts once consumed by drugs.

"I've learned that you can't let yourself get more invested in 
someone's life than they're willing to invest themselves," Hazzard said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom