Miami Zombie-Cannibal Attack Feared Related to Bath Salts

This article I wrote was first published on Technorati. It has been lengthened and editorialized here.

UPDATE:

There was a Youtube video accompanying this post about Bath Salts and the incident which was taken down by Google because of a report by someone. Since it was offered as an embed on Youtube and referenced from a news station which was listed and many other people are sharing the videos (some to the extent of millions and my use was one more) I can only think that the targeting/punishment is for the content and editorialization here.

BATH SALTS AND THEIR TOXIC, DANGEROUS INGREDIENTS should be BANNED. Lobbyists who are insisting it shouldn't and who might be indirectly supporting the campaigns of politicians or influencing agencies to look the other way about the ingredients of this drug should be held accountable. It is obvious that money is God to them and their excuse is, "Well, I have to pay the mortgage." It's a shame, but selling or marketing harmful, toxic chemicals is terrible. Yes, we all know who does it with impunity; my father was slowly poisoned to death by MEDS that are legal. It is a long and sad story. And so it goes with chemical producers....death and harm along with palliation.

Finally, I was offered payment to sport a link of this article. I thought about it, then visited here and found that the video had been "removed." The link related to a de-toxic clinic. Well, I don't need to receive payment to encourage folks to de-tox. I will pray for them for free, and I do pray for anyone who needs who is reading this post to receive any help they can so they can become free. May they be well and heal. Finally, this post has received many page views. I can only think that its morbidity is the reason why. Nevertheless, I do hope some of those who viewed the page read part of it.

 Bath salts. I use them every other day when I want to soak in a hot tub after tennis. Benign, right? Well, the words "bath salts," have become a powder keg in the past year for adults in Poison Control Centers around the nation and on Saturday for the Miami police who attribute a bizarre attack on a homeless man to be caused by the designer drug.  If you scrutinize certain stores in malls, for example tobacco shops or paraphernalia shops, you'll see kids walking out with packets or jars of "bath salts" with fanciful names like Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave, White China, Dynamite, Cloud 9. Most likely it was a similar packet with chemicals purportedly delivering a new LSD blow-out that made 31-year old Rudy Eugene go after the 61 year-old man.

"Bath salts' is the teenspeak code name for these white granules which are never added to bath water but like methamphetamine and cocaine are inhaled, snorted, taken orally, smoked, or liquified and injected into veins. Unlike meth and coke, they are a new chemical lab creation: methylenedioxypyrovalerone. and because some of the chemicals are still legal, the concoction is more surreptiously deadly. Leave it to drug makers to come up with something to float your boat right into the grave. They've got all populations covered:  the young with drug concoctions that can be formed into "bath salts," MDPV or other derivatives that illegal street chemists can use to make "designer drugs." And then they have drugs for the rest of us, hundreds of prescription medications, many with serious side effects and others that many suspect may be the panacea for newly made up diseases (restless leg syndrome) which exist only to satisfy the pharmaceutical manufacturers' profits.

Bath salts are an attractive nuisance for adolescents who operate on a different frequency and at a certain age, flirt with destroying themselves.  The white poison is labeled "Not fit for human consumption," a disclaimer, like "use at your own risk." Why? The chemical manufacturers are following the FDA guidelines to maintain legality, but the effect is disastrous. It is reverse psychology marketing to the young. "Not fit for human consumption? Cool, I'll try it," the teen thinks. The specific names like Dynamite, White China, Cloud 9 further market the designer drug as THE TREND to get "wasted, blitzkrieged, smithereened." How do you sell product to that age group? You attract and allure with promised deadliness which appeals to their machismo.
The problem is that once the teens and adults are intrigued and hooked, they may also be dead.  The ill effects of this white tripe that creates havoc with any brain and for the adolescent's still forming brain are hallucinations, agitation, hypo-mania, extreme psychotic behavior and self-harm. Additionally, there are chest pains, heart attack symptoms, overall feelings of unwellness and a rapidly beating pulse. Though individuals may only inhale the toxins once or twice, the horror is that the substance induces recurrent episodes. Officials have said, "The substance creates a ticking time bomb." The time bomb is the person.

 How are "bath salts" which have been banned by the DEA still sold in many states? The issue is complicated because manufacturers have found loopholes to get around the specific ban on certain chemicals. There is a lack of uniformity until the Federal Government permanently bans it nationwide.

The urgency for this permanent ban has been growing. There were thousands of calls to poison control centers in 2011. Numbers of teenagers in extreme states of hypo-mania threatened violence. The drug doesn't show up on any tests, nevertheless, as drug effects reoccur in spontaneous hallucinations and paranoia attacks, kids have committed suicide. Most likely the chemical never really leaves users' bodies or their brains. It is that lethal. And since it is based on an individual's response, who knows what others will succumb to suicide or homicide in the near future? Recurrences can be triggered at any time. The next event may be that one sending the user to his death or the attack that sends a homeless man to an intensive care unit which is what happened in Miami on Saturday.

ABC NEWS REPORT ON YOUTUBE  over 3 million views.




A passerby who noted the incident called the police and when they came police were appalled by what they saw. One naked man was leaning over another naked man lying on the Mac Arthur Causeway. He was cannibalizing him. As Rudy Eugene tore off pieces of flesh from the victim's face, police ordered him to stop. Police reported that Eugene, was growling like an animal as he swallowed pieces of the 61-year old homeless victim's flesh. He refused and did not back off, but looked at them with bloodied face and mouth, then resumed tearing off and chomping the man's ears, nose and cheeks until police shot him six times. The initial rounds that hit Eugene had little effect as he ate and even tried to gouge out the man's eyeballs. The victim, who is clinging to life in intensive care, is barely recognizable as human, according to reports.

The trade lobbyists who advocate the sale of these chemicals are  reprehensible. They justify their "legal" use with arguments that remind me of like a magician's sleight of hand. The rationale the lobbyists cling to? "Who is the government to stand in the way of someone's having a euphoric experience?"  In other words, they advocate against governmental intrusion. Evoking the Declaration of Independence in a twisted blind, they rationalize that individuals have a right to pursue happiness... a self-evident truth, an inalienable right.



The fact that the chemical turns a euphoric state into a HELL SO HORRIBLE that the only way to end the tormenting duress is suicide belies this inalienable right, does it not? The fact that high on "bath salts," someone like Rudy Eugene could end up shot to death because the insanity the drug creates  turned him into a zombie-cannibal IS NOT a pursuit of happiness.  That one short high can become a lifetime of insanity, a victim of a face eating attack, or an eternity in the afterlife isn't a civil right, it's a civil catastrophe. The drug manufacturer should be sued for product liability and the user who perpetrates the violence should be behind bars.

Another lobbyist argument has even included the comparison of a peanut allergy which can be deadly to a bad "bath salts" reaction. The argument is not only stupid, it's really stupid. And knowing what is now known about how it can create monstrous, delusional and cannibalistic behavior in  individuals, tantamount to a civil menace, the lobbyists' stupidity is galactic.

Advocates of bath salts, the drug makers, use the FDA label, ("Not fit for human consumption.) to absolve themselves of guilt and their company of liability. Too bad no one as of yet has brought a drug maker or a store that sells the chemicals to court. The FDA's label provides an aura of legality and shifts the blame onto the teens who are "dumb or wild" to ignore it. The reality is that the government label doesn't serve as a warning, it serves as an advertisement: 1) for teens who strain against parental strictures because adolescence is the time to prove to their peers they have their own autonomy; 2) for adults seeking the greatest thrill to be had in human experience. The warning is a macho's dream dare, like playing Russian Roulette or playing chicken. But the danger is paramount; from the Eugene incident and reports form poison control centers and emergency rooms indicate that users are slaves to the drug's power over their mind. When the chemical/toxin takes over, all hell breaks loose, not only for the demented crazed violent, self-harming user, but also for individuals caring for the beszerker.

Until the Rudy Eugene incident, the extent to which bath salts could make the user insane and wasted appeared to be its thrill, as users knowingly flirted death. The label demonstrates a brilliant, cost effective marketing technique, unwittingly instituted by the FDA to promote bath salts' wackedness.  The warning label marketing has been working. Kids have been entranced by the warnings and have purchased the drug. After 15 minutes it takes to get dynamited on bath salts, they upload these videos of themselves on Youtube. Unlike prescription medication advertisements, that list deadly side effects, with "bath salts," the kids only show themselves experiencing euphoria. They never discuss or record the uncool side effects: pansy hypo-mania, paranoia, agitation and old person's chest pains.

Rudy Eugene in a police mug shot of a prior arrest.

The blessing is that there haven't been more suicides or violent attacks like the one in Miami. However, tragedy may be forthcoming during this next year when the government determines whether the DEA's ban should be made permanent. Meanwhile, the chemists making this toxin ignore their accountability in peddling death, harm and mental derangement. Likewise, the Feds hesitancy to outright ban the substances used to make up "bath salts," to my mind shows egregious negligence. It's one thing if it is designated illegal and individuals, especially kids use it, quite another if it is not banned and homicides, violent attacks and suicides occur. If one child took his life because of this stuff and poison control centers and the DEA know it, it is unconscionable that the stuff is not deemed illegal and confiscated from every store where it is sold. There have been many and now, a zombie cannibalistic attack of a homeless 61-year old trying to make it to the next day? Please!!!

According to Zane Horowitz, MD, an emergency room physician and medical director of the Oregon Poison Center, "Drug makers will keep creating new combinations" of designer drugs "at home and in illicit labs. "It’s almost impossible to keep up. And the motivation for buying them is always the same: drugs like these are new and below the radar, unlike named illegal drugs."

If "bath salts" are permanently banned, other drugs will be created to create a loophole to slip through the ban, but that is no reason not to ban these chemicals now or put them on a licensed sign up watch list. Their horrific effects are known; why wait?The time will be redeemed as chemists scratch their heads to innovate new death thrill designer chemicals. The ban will create some lag time to detonate the profits of the drug makers, and stave off the creation of ticking time bomb users like Rudy Eugene and teen suicides. The sooner the better.