The cannibalistic attack in Miami has led to a flurry of stories identifying the drug involved as ‘bath salts’. The problem comes in nailing down just what that term means. The Miami police are saying it’s a ‘new form of LSD’ but googling it just adds to the confusion. Some sites say that actual bath salts are being snorted or injected by druggies and that several states have outlawed the product. Other answers point to something called 4-aco-dmt, or plain old PCP or a dozen other things.
Bath salts are unscheduled stimulants, compared favorably with methamphetamine in effects on the mind. There were several different stimulants sold under this fiction over the years, I believe the first was mephedrone but as it become scheduled in various countries producers moved on to MDPV and others. These were sold as bath salts due to the similarity in appearance but this was only a fiction to get around FDA and other laws, several years before liquid doses of MDMA analogues were sold as room freshener and before that GBL and analogues were sold as ink remover or aquarium cleaner. This fictional product sold through head shops and online thing has a long history.
There are research chemicals that are hallucinagens but as far as I and my friends were aware bath salts=stimulants.
A&E’s *Intervention *did an episode about a guy doing these, I think his name was Skyler. It was the first time I’d ever heard of them. They seemed to be a euphoric, stimulant, and a hallucinogen, so similar to meth. Really nasty, brain-destroying stuff. Reminded me of huffing gasoline.