# "Bath Salts" and real bath salts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 14, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186 "2012-06-14T23:55:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/21 "2012-06-15T20:58:25Z")
They also sell glass pipes, and a sign next to them says “for tobacco use only.” Riiight. It’s best if they have a pot leaf pattern all over them.
You can also see [these](http://0.tqn.com/d/alcoholism/1/0/G/-/2/loverose.jpg) being sold sometimes, in finer establishments. The key is to throw the rose away before you use it as a crack pipe. And the clerks can claim or pretend that they don’t know what they’re used for and be okay usually.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/22 "2012-06-15T21:10:57Z")
> [@typoink](#):
>
> I can’t speak to bath salts since I’ve never even seen them sold, but for fake pot “incense,” I know they’d keep the pretense that it was been sold as a fragrance. Maybe with a wink and a nod. Despite the fact that the products were 100% useless for this purpose.
I believe at least one variety of bath-salt-type drug was being sold as “shoe cleaner.” Came across a message board where various aficionados were exchanging tips on which seedy gas stations were still selling this or that brand, complaining that such-and-such brand has disappeared or wasn’t as potent anymore, lamenting their inability to stop taking the shit even after losing their jobs/mates/kids/etc., and generally making me weep for mankind.
And to answer the OP’s question, there is at least [one company](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/real-bath-salts-are-not-for-smoking-saltworks-sets-the-record-straight-158851435.html) that is attempting to publicize the fact that their bath salts are for bathing and not getting high. Whether that clarification ends up helping or hurting their overall sales remains to be seen, I suppose.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/23 "2012-06-15T21:55:17Z")
> [@lost4life](#):
>
> I have to admit, when I first starting hearing news stories about the drugs, I was confused because they just said “Bath Salts”…not “the drug called Bath Salts” or anything to clarify what it was.
>
> So after a disappointing trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I figured things out.
Psst.. You should have looked more carefully in the _Beyond_ section. 😉
Actually, I too was quite confused by the stories about “Bath Salts” when they first started appearing in the media. :o
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/24 "2012-06-15T22:04:13Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Actually, I too was quite confused by the stories about “Bath Salts” when they first started appearing in the media. :o
I hadn’t picked up on it until this thread. I understood these were dangerous drugs even though the frenzy of publicity is becoming over the top, but I didn’t know the connection to bath salts was entirely bullshit.
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### Author:  [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/25 "2012-06-16T00:19:37Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> They also sell glass pipes, and a sign next to them says “for tobacco use only.” Riiight. It’s best if they have a pot leaf pattern all over them.
>
> You can also see [these](http://0.tqn.com/d/alcoholism/1/0/G/-/2/loverose.jpg) being sold sometimes, in finer establishments. The key is to throw the rose away before you use it as a crack pipe. And the clerks can claim or pretend that they don’t know what they’re used for and be okay usually.
Haven’t most places cracked down on these? I know in Michigan you can’t get them anymore and they used to be in every gas station and corner market in town.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/26 "2012-06-16T00:22:30Z")
Which? I see the pipes from time to time, last time a week ago. I haven’t seen the roses in awhile but I don’t know where to look.
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### Author:  [@troubledwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troubledwater)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/27 "2012-06-16T00:25:35Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I hadn’t picked up on it until this thread. I understood these were dangerous drugs even though the frenzy of publicity is becoming over the top, but I didn’t know the connection to bath salts was entirely bullshit.
Ha. for confusion, you should have seen my foster daughter when her biological mother was describing her (the mother’s) new roommate - “She’s clean now, but she used to use basalt.”
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/28 "2012-06-16T02:48:43Z")
> [@troubledwater](#):
>
> Ha. for confusion, you should have seen my foster daughter when her biological mother was describing her (the mother’s) new roommate - “She’s clean now, but she used to use basalt.”
I found these igneous rocks in your dresser drawer. Is there anything you haven’t been telling me?
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/29 "2012-06-16T03:33:01Z")
The sad thing is, there is a relatively benign mood altering plant out there, that if legal, would give many of these people seeking bath salts, etc something safe yet enjoyable to do. Just sayin.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/30 "2012-06-16T09:06:59Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#):
>
> I was confused too. I thought people were actually finding some way to use real bath salts to get high.
While I knew about that, until this thread, I actually thought “incense” was real incense, just a special kind that got you high. I was under the impression that they were just dipping real incense in special chemicals or something.
This makes me a lot less suspicious of that one girl in school who always carried incense around with her–you could smell it was the real thing. Maybe she just stank.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/31 "2012-06-16T12:52:42Z")
> [@troubledwater](#):
>
> Ha. for confusion, you should have seen my foster daughter when her biological mother was describing her (the mother’s) new roommate - “She’s clean now, but she used to use basalt.”
Ah, the hard stuff!
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/32 "2012-06-16T13:46:06Z")
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Ah, the hard stuff!
No, that would be Slab.
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### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/33 "2012-06-16T14:05:51Z")
My word. Between quitting smoking and pay-at-the pump, I’ve only actually walked into a convenience store maybe a dozen times in the last decade. It’s like a whole world dropped off my radar. I often forget it still exists: the world didn’t change, just which parts I spend time in.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/34 "2012-06-16T14:20:22Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> The sad thing is, there is a relatively benign mood altering plant out there, that if legal, would give many of these people seeking bath salts, etc something safe yet enjoyable to do. Just sayin.
That’s certainly a legitimate point where the “fake pot” drugs like K2/Spice are concerned, anyway. The easy availability and (until recently) unlikelihood of failing a drug test would seem to be their only advantages over plain old marijuana. (From what I’ve read, anyway. Haven’t had the slightest desire to try them.)
“Bath salts” provide a stimulant and/or hallucinogenic effect, though, so pot doesn’t fully substitute. The media has tended to smear the synthetic cannabinoids and “bath salts” together when reporting on them, I guess because they were often sold by the same stores and both are alleged to cause bad reactions in some users, so sometimes it’s not clear that they’re different types of drugs with very different effects.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/35 "2012-06-17T01:30:18Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#):
>
> “Bath salts” provide a stimulant and/or hallucinogenic effect, though, so pot doesn’t fully substitute. .
YMMV, but a lot of people I know/have known “just wanna get high” without regard to specifics. Stimulants, opiates, hallucinogens; the specifics don’t matter, it is all in ease of acquisition.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/36 "2012-06-18T15:12:09Z")
Hmph. Dilettantes.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/37 "2012-06-18T15:30:40Z")
I was confused when I first read a report of a guy who was arrested naked, in public after felching a goat. He claimed it was the Bath Salts.
Imagine my disappointment when all I had to show for my debauchery was a pleasent Mint Cucumber odor.
And I still have the damn goat.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/38 "2012-06-18T17:36:14Z")
> [@cmyk](#):
>
> I was confused when I first read a report of a guy who was arrested naked, in public after felching a goat. He claimed it was the Bath Salts.
>
> Imagine my disappointment when all I had to show for my debauchery was a pleasent Mint Cucumber odor.
>
> And I still have the damn goat.
Have you tried snorting Coke[sup]®[/sup]?
---
### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/39 "2012-06-18T18:51:41Z")
Mephedrone was apparently so popular here in that brief period when it was legal that drug dealers were burning down head shops. I recall some of the headshops being open until 4am or so and huge queues for them from the clubbing crowds.
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### Author:  [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bath-salts-and-real-bath-salts/625186/40 "2012-06-19T18:35:06Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> They also sell glass pipes, and a sign next to them says “for tobacco use only.” Riiight. It’s best if they have a pot leaf pattern all over them.
In my family, we laugh occasionally, claiming, “it’s not a _bong!_ It’s a water pipe for fine tobacco!”
It astounds me that such equipment is still sold legally _anywhere_ in the US, much less in head shops that are permanent brick-and-mortar locations with advertising and clientele.
Not too far from my house, there’s a nasty-looking convenience store (the dreaded “Dan-D-Mart”) that, amongst other things, sells “water pipes”, as well as airsoft guns and replica medieval weapons like battle axes and flails.
Who shops there, Hawkman?
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