Given the article “Does PCP turn people into cannibals?” just ran as a classic column, and with the recent spate of activities from “bath salts”, is it time for an update?
PCP seems particularly associated with cases of users doing gruesome damage to themselves, as evidenced by several of the examples given. One of the common effects of PCP is indifference to pain, leading to such incidents as people burning themselves, slashing themselves, or gouging out their own eyes.
We had a thread some time back (but I can’t find it now) about someone (a rapper? Andre Johnson of Wu-Tang Clan?) who cut off his own dick under the influence.
So “bath salts” are a [type of cathinone:
The most commonly reported ingredient in “bath salts” is methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), although other stimulants may be present, such as mephedrone and pyrovalerone.1 MDPV is of the phenethylamine class and is structurally similar to cathinone, an alkaloid found in the khat plant and methamphetamine. Mephedrone has been reported to have a high potential for overdose.
From [URL=“Bath salts (drug) - Wikipedia ”]Wikipedia](Bath Salts Drug: Effects, Abuse & Health Warnings - Drugs.com ):
Pharmacologically, bath salts usually contain a cathinone, typically methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), methylone or mephedrone; however, the chemical composition varies widely[6][12] and products labeled with the same name may also contain derivatives of pyrovalerone or pipradrol. In Europe the main synthetic cathinone is mephedrone, whereas in the US MDPV is more common.[6]
Cathione comes from khat, and is a stimulant similar to amphetimines.
Cathinone differs from many other amphetamines in that it has a ketone functional group. Other phenethylamines that share this structure include the stimulants methcathinone, MDPV, mephedrone and the antidepressant bupropion* among others.
(* added by me)
Events I was speaking of include the “Miami Cannibal Attack ”.
Although the autopsy revealed no human flesh in Eugene’s stomach, a number of undigested pills were discovered that have not been identified.[20] Although police sources had speculated that the street drug “bath salts” might have been involved, preliminary toxicology reports were positive only for the presence of cannabis.[5][21] Authorities have not necessarily found the negative results conclusive; Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti has expressed a belief that some new drug not yet tested for played a role; nationally noted toxicologist Barry Logan said Eugene’s behavior was consistent with “bath salts” and that toxicologists “are not testing for everything that may be out there”; and the director of toxicology at the University of Florida, Dr. Bruce Goldberger, said, “We are not incompetent…We have the tools, we have the sophistication and know-how. But the field is evolving so rapidly it is hard for us to keep track. It’s almost as if it is a race we can never win.”[22]
So bath salts are suspected but uncomfirmed, but there are unidentified pills from his stomach, so it could be some new designer synthetic cathinone. The medical examiner said it wasn’t bath salts, but nobody has identified what it was.
This article from Reason.com dismisses bath salts as an overhyped risk that wasn’t actually involved in any of the news cited cases of disturbing violence.
To reinforce their depiction of bath salts as catalysts of mayhem, reporters covering the “Miami cannibal attack” cited other examples of violence allegedly caused by the stimulants. “Other cases that were ‘packaged’ with the Miami incident,” Swalve and DeFoster note, included “a case in which a man ate someone’s brain, a man who stabbed himself in New Jersey, and the dismemberment of a porn star by her boyfriend.” Yet “none turned out to actually have involved the use of bath salts.” In that respect, of course, those casesdidresemble what Charlie Dent called “this face-chewing situation in Florida.”
Despite all the references to a bath salt “epidemic,” these drugs were never very popular, and it seems use of them was already declining when CNN et al. warned that it was on the rise. Swalve and DeFoster note that calls to poison control centers involving bath salts fell from 6,138 in 2011 to 2,654 in 2012. The sensational reports provoked by Eugene’s gory crime either ignored or blatantly misrepresented these data. “In a June 2 broadcast on CNN,” Swalve and DeFoster write, “a guest noted that ‘about two years ago, there were 300 reported cases, last year 6,000, and this year 1,000 reported cases, so it’s on the rise,’ with the news anchor echoing this sentiment, seemingly oblivious to the contradiction.”
[snip]
The same hyperbolic tendencies that Swalve and DeFoster saw in stories about the Causeway Cannibal can be seen in prior coverage of drugs such asmarijuana,LSD,PCP,crack cocaine,methamphetamineandsalvia, not to mention subsequent coverage of drugs such asKrokodil,Captagonandflakka(another name for alpha-PVP, one of the stimulants used in bath salts). All of those panics have been accompanied or followed by critiques like Swalve and DeFoster’s, pointing out the gap between the horror story and the reality. How many times must leading news outlets fail to live up to their supposedly “high ethical standards” before we conclude that those are just as mythical as tales of drug-induced cannibalism?
So, I have fallen for the hype. Bath salts do not cause cannibalism, are not a “zombie drug”, and the few mysterious cases of violence being cited by the news did not, in fact, involve bath salts. Interesting.
Still, this may be something for Cecil to address.
Oh no, Wellbutrin is a “bath salt”! Run, I’m going to be eating you soon!