Posted by Dave Dykema - email
TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - There's a new way young people are getting high. They're using bath salts to do it.
These bath salts are a synthetic cocaine. They go by lots of names: Cloud 9, Ivory Soft, Pure Ivory and White Diamonds.
Kids are smoking, snorting, or injecting them.
Sellers call them "Bath Salts" but Drug Enforcement Agents say that's deceiving. No one buys "Bath Salts" in a quarter gram or half gram for $40 to $50. The buyers know what they really are.
They're sold as novelty items in stores or online. The labels state they're not for human consumption.
Drug prevention specialist Alexis Blavos says that's how they get around the FDA.
"Because it's a synthetic manmade chemical and they don't have to report to the FDA, we don't really know what's inside of that," Blavos said.
The states of Florida, North Dakota, and Louisiana have banned these so-called Salts.
WTOL 11 asked State Representative Matt Szollosi from Oregon if this issue needs to be on Ohio's radar. "We don't want our kids to be messing around with this stuff. I mean, this is no good. So, school officials, parents, we really need to be on our toes to make sure something tragic doesn't occur up here."
Some young people in our area had this to say when asked about this disturbing trend:
"I've heard crazy stuff before. That's gotta be up there, though," Matt Kuna said.
"It's pretty shocking. They will try anything I guess," Justin Grier said.
"I think they're just trying to find new ways I guess," Devyn Ramsay said.
And that's the frustrating thing for those who are trying to steer kids away from harm.
"No matter what we do we take a step forward in prevention and we get rid of K2 (synthetic marijuana), something else shows up on the shelves. It's because somebody's going to make money off of it," Blavos said.
