Continued Bath Salt Rants

The number of admissions to the psychiatric unit here continues to be a fairly steady rate of 2-4 a week caused by psychosis secondary to MDPV, or bath salts (as they are commonly called) abuse. In some cases the patients have nothing else wrong with them and if it were not for this, would not come in contact with the mental health system. Some of them have other comorbid conditions. For a patient who has bipolar disorder, adding a hefty dose of "Blizzard" can set off a psychotic manic episode in no time. Not that one has to have a history of psychosis to get psychotic on MDPV. Most of the patients admitted do not have any psychiatric history. The common factor with all of these patients is that they are grossly psychotic.

And addicted. Many have turned to stealing to find the money to pay for their addiction. This stuff runs at about $35-40 a packet and the version sold around here, Blizzard, runs around $50-70 for a small jar. Break ins have been reported in areas that never had to deal with them before because of the presence of a "head shop" that sells MDPV. This is all to pay for a legal substance, not a so called "street drug". At these costs, the price is simply too high for most people to sustain their habit without resorting to illegal means to pay for it.

I am not sure about the weight or volume that is in a jar of Blizzard, but I know this is about enough to keep one person doped up on an out of control speed binge for about a weekend. It goes further than crack certainly, but still not cheap. In other words, enough to keep someone awake for three days straight and end up so flagrantly psychotic that one is either going to end in the hospital or dead. Much longer would cause the heart to give out from tachycardia (racing heart). That or the delusional patient ends up running into the street fleeing an imagined assailant and gets hit by a car. That or the person just dies of an overdose.

Although the user will come off such a long binge swearing he or she will never go through that experience again, they inevitably do. By now the user is addicted. The withdrawal symptoms make the user miserable and the actual experience of a binge is not always pleasant, but the drug's effects are stronger than the intellect. I have talked to people who have been fighting this battle for years.

And there are still people who think that legalizing drugs will solve the country's problems. I just hope that if a store decides to sell this product, that this store is in their neighborhood and not mine. If they want legal drugs, they can have them. I do not want them in my, or my family's (especially my child's) neighborhood.