'BATH SALT' USE EMERGING AS STATEWIDE TREND

Designer Drug Linked to Three Area Deaths and Suspected in Two
Others.

The designer drug marketed as "bath salts" is appearing statewide as
an emerging drug trend, according to officials from the Ohio
Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

"We are seeing it in some of the different regions, but it is hard for
us to say just how big of a problem it is right now," said Brad
DeCamp, the department's assistant chief of treatment and recovery
services.

"Bath salts," a synthetic stimulant with hallucinogenic properties, is
legal in Ohio.

The drug has been linked to three area deaths and is suspected in two
others, according to the Montgomery County Coroner's Office.

"It is very similar to the type of symptoms and side effects you would
see from someone who is either abusing cocaine or methamphetamine,"
DeCamp said.

Those effects can include chest pains, increased blood pressure and
heart rate, agitation, paranoia, hallucinations and delusions, he said.

The department is tracking bath salts through the Ohio Substance Abuse
Monitoring Network, a group of researchers and treatment providers
that helps it identify new drug trends.

Little is known but "there are things to be very much concerned
about," DeCamp said.

Bath salts have been linked to at least two other fatalities in Ohio,
officials said.

One death in the Cleveland area "has been ruled on as related to bath
salts," said Dr. Thomas Gilson, Cuyahoga County medical examiner. The
drug is suspected in at least one other investigation, he said.

"I do think its frequency is increasing," Gilson said.

The drug's active ingredient, methylenediopyrovalerone (MDPV), was
identified in a Youngstown-area fatality, but it wasn't the sole cause
of death, said Dr. Joseph Ohr, forensic pathologist at the Mahoning
County Coroner's Office, who called it a multiple drug
intoxication.

"Bath salts" also have been linked to Cincinnati criminal cases by the
Hamilton County Crime Laboratory, said Terry Daly, a spokesman for the
county Coroner's Office.

DeCamp said the alcohol and drug department supports legislation
proposed by State Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, to classify some
chemicals found in bath salts in the same category as LSD, marijuana
and heroin.

"Our hope is that with the legislation that Rep. Luckie has put out
there that will curb the availability and, hopefully, short-circuit
any type of trend that we might be seeing," DeCamp said.