Alliance: "Bath Salts" Ban Good, Prevention Better

The Cranford Municipal Alliance hosted an informational workshop Tuesday evening detailing the dangers and consequences of legal highs. The session, titled Bath Salts and Emerging Drug Trends, focused on drug trends that have steadily grown in popularity in the area. Michael Litterer, Program Director of Prevention Links, gave the presentation.

Cranford Municipal Alliance is a state funded organization whose goal is to prevent drug and alcohol abuse within the town. Chair Bill Illaria said that the Alliance in Cranford heavily focuses on teen alcohol abuse, which they believe lead to harder, more serious drug abuse.

“Our strategy is to try to get it at the start, which is to try to get parent’s awareness up around the dangers of being permissive or vague about the dangers of teen drinking,” he said. “And hopefully have that put a clamp on some of the worse things that happen to some of these poor kids who go astray.”

“Drug abuse and addiction do not discriminate,” Litterer added. “It doesn’t happen more often in an urban, suburban, upper middle class or lower class community; it happens here. The richer the town, the more expensive the drugs.”

Litterer said that Prevention Links’ goal was to educate community members on both the various illegal substances, but more importantly, to teach them skills to prevent their children from housing an abuse problem in the future.

“The discussion is often, ‘how do I prevent this, how do I stop my child from doing this, or how do I know my child is doing this?’” he said. “I want us to take one step back and take a look at the ‘why.’ We have to understand the ‘why’ so we know how to prevent.”

The phrase, “bath salts” became all too familiar to Cranford residents last month, when a woman was found murdered in her boyfriend’s basement. The Cranford man, , had a history of substance abuse and bi-polar disorder, and had allegedly been using bath salts at the time of the murder. Though devastating, the episode has shed a light on a common, easily obtainable drug, and has been instrumental for both local and government officials in banning the drug for good.

Prevention Links studies drug trends in the area and puts together a presentation every 3-4 weeks in order to educate as many groups and community members as they could. Past presentations dealt primarily with harder street drugs, such as cocaine or heroin. Recently, Prevention Links saw a dramatic increase in the use of “alternative drugs,” or drugs that could be obtained through legal means.

Litterer opened the session discussing “B-Side Drugs.” The drugs derive their name from the B-Side song on an album; they are less popular than the major street drugs but similar in composition; their popularity fluctuates and spreads by word of mouth; and they are similar to most popular drugs in impact. He began with the most well known B-Side Drug of the moment, bath salts.

Bath salts contain the now-illegal chemicals Methylenedioxyprovalerone (MDPV) and Methylmethcathinone (Mephedrone). The drug earned its name from its similar appearance to bath salts, but was never manufactured for that use. Mostly manufactured in Asia, bath salts are packaged in brightly colored packets, often with some type of kid-friendly cartoon on the label.

“The more dangerous a kid thinks a substance is, the less likely they’re going to use it,” Litterer said, adding that bath salts gained its appeal because it was able to be smoked or snorted.

Bath salts is mostly a hallucinogen, similar to LSD or ecstasy, with effects lasting about 3-4 hours. Symptoms include extreme anxiety, paranoia, violent outbursts, and suicidal thoughts. The chemical was invented in 1969, but appeared in the United States in 2008. In addition, the United States is one of the last countries in the world to make the product illegal. 2010 saw 302 reported calls related to bath salts. Within the first three months of 2011, there have been over 1500 calls. 

 On April 20, the New Jersey Attorney General Paula Dow added the six main ingredients of bath salts to the Controlled Dangerous Substance Act list, making the substance illegal. Prior to this decision, bath salts could be found in places as common as the grocery store. The Attorney General ruling is temporary—a means to conduct more research on the product while drafting a more permanent ban. Though the drugs are currently illegal, Litterer did not believe bath salts should be removed from the conversation.

“Someone asked me the question, ‘Well now that bath salts are illegal, are you going to take them out of your presentation?’ No,” he said. “The thing is that they’re still around. Just because they’re illegal makes their accessibility a little more limited, but they’re still going to be there. We still have to talk and be educated on the topic.”

Litterer also touched on similar legal highs, such as “synthetic marijuana” or spice and alcoholic energy drinks. The message of Prevention Links remained the same: prevention must begin early. If both legal and illegal highs remain in the conversation, future tragedies may be averted.