The recent episode of cannibalism in Miami sent shockwaves of disgust and horror across the world, with some commentators likening it to an impending zombie apocalypse. When it was announced that the perpetrator was high on something called "bath salts" during the time of the attack, a new wave of drug hysteria (think reefer madness) launched full tilt. Out of nowhere, a drug emerged that could turn people into zombie cannibals. Or at least that was the tacit implication of much of the media coverage. Suddenly, seemingly disconnected acts of violence could be easily explained by deadly bath salts.
As always, some important questions got lost in the coverage of this newest killer drug, such as: Why did bath salts suddenly show up on the drug landscape? And, more importantly, why are people using them?
Bath salts are just one of many emerging synthetic drugs. While on the street, what is sold as bath salts can vary widely (sometimes containing nothing more than caffeine and aspirin, according to some reports), "pure" bath salts contain mephedrone, an amphetamine-type stimulant that produces effects similar to speed, ecstasy or cocaine. Like other designer drugs, bath salts are produced by altering the chemical composition of currently illegal drugs such as crystal methamphetamine or cocaine to provide a "high" while skirting existing drug laws.
Bath salts aren't the first of this type of quasi-illegal drug, and they won't be the last. In fact, after bath salts were identified in Europe in January 2010 as a new psychoactive substance of concern, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction launched a joint task force to identify new and emerging psychoactive substances. The result? In 2010 alone, they identified 41 new psychoactive substances across Europe, all of which had chemical structures loosely based on existing illegal drugs. Bath salts, it turns out, were just a drop in the bucket.
So what is motivating the production of these new psychoactive drugs? The answer may, paradoxically, be the result of escalating attempts at prohibiting the use of the slate of drugs we know about like cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines. Basic economic theory demonstrates that with increasing attempts at enforcing bans on these substances through arrest and incarceration, drug suppliers will naturally diversify to reduce risk and maintain profits.
Simply put, if methamphetamine production is illegal and bath salts production isn't, as is the case in our current system, drug supplies have an incentive to switch to the production of the non-illegal drug. While the natural reaction to this situation might be to want to extend prohibition even further, chemists are able to develop new drugs with incredible swiftness, at a rate that outpaces the development of society's capacity to put into place policies that can control them. As our drug policies become more stringent, the incentive to develop new and ever more unpredictable drugs to skirt existing laws simply increases.
Of course, the emergence of new synthetic drugs is concerning exactly because their psychotropic effects are unpredictable. But dig a little deeper, and it becomes clear that many of the dangers we associate with drugs are related to the effects of existing policies, rather than to the drugs themselves.
Like bath salts users, heroin, cocaine or ecstasy users generally don't know what is in the drugs they buy, because knowing the purity or dosage of illegal or quasi-legal drugs is impossible when they're bought on the street. This lack of information is one of the primary drivers of fatal overdose, which kills tens of thousands each year and represents one of the most harmful unintended consequences of the prohibition of drugs.
So are bath salts really the first wave of the zombie apocalypse? When placed in their proper context, it seems, sadly, that they're just the latest manifestation of "zombie" drug policies -- policies that mindlessly multiply drug-related harms and contribute to an ever-increasing landscape of quasi-legal substances. Chilling stuff.
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Usually what happens is a bunch of people die or get sick or chew somebodys face off before the fire gets lit under the government, forcing them to act.
I remember when MDA was biker dope.
Now its fun stuff for the kiddes who want to dance all night and get laid.
Turns out the stuff gets stepped on like a wecome mat and the kiddies are doing more meth than E but thats all good cause they can still dance all night and get laid.
Step on it a little more and when you get busted for holding the cops can't make the charges stick cause the Lab boys cant identify the compound.
The kids are still dancing all night but some of them are waking up with parkinsons disease.
Some people yell " why isn't the government doing something"
Other people yell "why is the government messing up our fun
And parents across the country get phone calls at 4:00am notifying them their child has been admitted to hospital and they need to come as quickly as possible because their child is not showing any significant brain activity.
The war on drugs will never be won.
The best we can hope for is to hold the line and save as many as we can
NIMBY idiots who want a quick and quiet solution to their problems with drug use (needles/crack stems in parks, increased property offences, smashed beer bottles on streets, etc.) are easily herded into voting for politicians who promise to "get tough on crime". Does it work? Has it ever? No.
Legalize it all, so we can ensure a safer environment for drug use (ESPECIALLY hard stuff), giving the best chance for users to avoid the most harmful aspects (overdose, violent criminals, violent police, HIV, hep C, homelessness, etc.) and get clean.
Fact: Insite (Vancouver's safe injection site/health services centre for drug users) has not had a single overdose death in 9 years of operation. Now imagine if the PROFITS of the drugs sold went to the governments funding the place. Add that to the massive savings in policing costs, and you're talking about a veritable windfall!
Half-measures like decrim don't solve the problem of making gangsters rich, and will provide further ammo for prohibitionists to simply revert to our current immoral drug laws.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say politicians are actually on the payroll of the Hells Angels. But then, I was born in Quebec.
Anyways, I hope that us academics will not bow to media pressure of calling synthetic legal highs bath salts, as most people who use drugs would never use that terminology. Many of the youth I know who are into legal highs call them RCs, aka research chemicals. Interesting fact, the most popular "bath salt" in Canada is actually Wellbutrin (yes that's right, it's a cathinone) and is prescribed for quitting smoking, lethargic depression, and more recently as amphetamine-substitution therapy. Research chemicals may have medicinal properties which are being thwarted by irrational ideological driven drug policy. Many of these so-called "bath salts" have been trialed as anti-depressants, and have valid therapeutic properties.
"How is it that the Harper Government can act (overreact?), and pass legislation, in days(!), to remove basic democratic rights from the Canada Post workers, then The Air Canada Flight Attendants, Mechanics and Pilots, then the CP workers but hesitates to ban the materials that are used to make bath salts"?
I hope it's not because they have to take their time and make sure they don't step on the toes of the big pharmaceuticals that help elect them... that would be wrong and undemocratic !!!