In recent weeks news accounts have been sprinkled with bizarre accounts of a naked man attacking and literally eating the face of a victim in Miami; another naked man making threats and sexual advances toward a 3-year-old girl on a children’s playground; a 21-year-old man growling at police and trying to bite an officer yelling, “I’m going to eat you!”; and an Austin man who reportedly jumped naked from a bridge and attacked an emergency services worker who came to his aid.
What ties these acts together? The use of “bath salts.”
The term bath salts elicits thoughts and smells of lavender and magnolia in Grandma’s bathroom. That was then.
Now, bath salts are a concoction made by street chemists, and the effects of using them are anything but harmless. The initial “feelings” are reported as relaxation, euphoria and a sense of warmth and well being. Those sensations eventually devolve into an increased heart rate and blood pressure, extremely high body temperatures (hence, the removal of clothing), extreme paranoia and violence, leading law enforcement authorities to deem the symptoms “excited delirium.”
In Tennessee, bath salts, their ingredients and similar derivatives now are illegal due to legislation just passed during the 2012 General Assembly and signed into law. However, the availability of the small packets, often labeled “not for human consumption,” still is widespread.