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It's labeled and sold as bath salts, but the only thing it has in common with a bath is the people who smoke, snort and inject this legal drug are finding themselves in a lot of hot water.
It's actually methylenedioxypyrovalerone, MDPV, and it's a psychoactive drug much like cocaine or methamphetamine.
According to those in the area's medical and law enforcement communities, it's a problem.
"This substance makes people nuts," Dr. Joseph Antonowicz, medical director, Altoona Regional Center for Behavioral Health, said.
Antonowicz said he first became aware of people taking the so-called bath salts, which look like a white powder and smell of potatoes, as a drug about two months ago when two people had to be admitted to the mental health facility.
"They were convinced someone was out to get them," Antonowicz said. "They were delusional. They were seeing things that weren't there, hearing things that weren't there."
Antonowicz said he found out the people had taken bath salts, marketed under names such as Blizzard, Ivory Snow and White Lightning. As an addiction specialist, he set out to learn about the legal drug.
What Antonowicz found was there was little scientific research about MDPV's effects on humans and that because it was formulated as a possible cocaine-blocker, a drug that would help fight cocaine addiction, it had been tweaked and marketed by underground chemists as a legal alternative to stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine.
Dangerous effects
It's also dangerous with the potential to kill, Antonowicz said.
"There's no doubt people will have strokes and heart attacks, just like we see with people and coke," he said.
Antonowicz said the two people who initially showed up at the center shared similar experiences, and beyond the psychosis and hallucinations that come with the speed-like high, they experienced the same craving to keep doing the drug.
He explained that the patients had been up for several days snorting the drug, and when they were admitted, it took days for the psychotic effects to wear off. Even after they crashed and slept, it took a couple days for them to realize no one was out to get them and that there wasn't a conspiracy against them, he said.
Dr. Matthew P. Bouchard, chairman of the Emergency Medicine Department at Altoona Regional, said users of MDPV have created a real problem for emergency room doctors and nurses.
"Some are totally out of control with it," Bouchard said, noting the ER is seeing more and more patients coming in while high on the drug. He said users are extremely agitated, extremely paranoid and have no sense of danger, either to themselves or others.
Bouchard said the drug increases the heart rate, raises blood pressure and causes profuse sweating.
"Some have stabbed themselves," he said.
And there's no antidote to bring people out of it, Bouchard added. The drug has to run its course, which can take 36 to 48 hours. While patients are under the drug's effects, they don't respond to the simplest of commands. Their behavior, he said, requires staff to restrain them and sometimes they need sedatives, which means admission to the hospital's intensive-care unit.
At least two people have overdosed on the drug and died this year in Blair County, according to Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross. One was a 20-year-old woman and the other was a 30-year-old man. She suspects pending toxicology reports on a third person will show the same thing.
Bouchard said a big concern is dosage. Because the drug has only surfaced in the U.S. in the last year and is totally unregulated, users have no baseline understanding of how much to ingest. It seems much more potent than meth, he said, and dealing with users creates a serious drain on emergency room resources, especially staff.
Local action
On Wednesday, Operation Our Town, the nonprofit group that aims to eliminate illicit drugs in Blair County, held a public forum to address MDPV and its impact on the community.
A roundtable group of professionals, elected officials, law enforcement and the medical community talked about their experiences with MDPV users and their concerns if its use goes unchecked.
"It's out there, and kids are knowing about it," Judy Rosser, executive director of Blair County Drug & Alcohol said. She said using the drug comes with a high price, not just for the user but also family members who find themselves unable to deal with the person once they're addicted.
She cited one case in which a family called for help for a family member who, after using the drug, had lost 40 pounds and was "spinning out of control."
"We really need to find out what we can do to get this under control," Rosser said.
Reining in the drug's use isn't so easy because it's legal, unregulated and can be found throughout Blair County, particularly at so-called "head shops."
State Rep. Jerry Stern, R-Martinsburg, said MDPV isn't just a problem in Blair County as its use throughout the state has local law enforcement scrambling to find a way to stem its use.
On Wednesday, Lackawanna County judges granted an injunction on behalf of District Attorney Andy Jarbola that bans the sale of MDPV in Scranton. In late March, the city of Hazelton passed an ordinance banning its sale, according to press reports.
Assistant Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks said until state legislation is passed banning the drug, or it's prohibited by federal authorities, law enforcement's hands are tied.
Weeks said the District Attorney's Office is looking into ways current laws could be applied to stop the use of the drug, but it's difficult because MDPV isn't sold as a drug. It's sold as "bath salts" and labeled "not for human consumption," which means the distributors are able to skirt the law.
Weeks said the idea MDPV is a bath salt is ridiculous, considering actual bath salts, such as epsom salts, are a few dollars a pound and products such as Blizzard are sold from between $30 and $50 per gram, a price comparable to cocaine.
What police can do
Altoona Police Sgt. Troy Johannides said on Thursday the aggressiveness and psychosis of users have caused problems for officers, and the police department is actively working with the District Attorney's Office to draw up procedures on how to deal with it.
Johannides said addressing the problem with the public is a double-edged sword.
"We want the citizens to know about this stuff, but we don't want the addicts to learn about it," he said. Unfortunately, after MDPV hit the United Kingdom and Australia in 2009, word spread over the Internet. Once it hit the city's streets, the word spread throughout Altoona's drug culture, he said.
Johannides said users are mistaken when they believe police can do nothing if they're caught behind the wheel on MDPV just because it's legal. He said patrolmen know how to recognize the signs, especially the heavy sweating associated with use, and can employ the driving under the influence laws.
"You don't have to prove what they were on, only that they are an unsafe driver," he said.
The biggest issue, Johannides said, is the drug is a public safety threat and ties up valuable man hours.
Earlier this year, Stern introduced a provision that would ban the drug after several area police chiefs expressed their concerns and he learned of its effects. In March, it was amended to a House Bill 365, likely to be approved by the House on Monday so it can be sent to the Senate.
"This is about getting a substance that is real bad for the people taking it and making it illegal," Stern said Wednesday.
On the federal level, Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., has written a letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asking that it temporarily ban MDPV, but so far it remains widely available.
A reporter purchased a small packet of Blizzard last week at a local shop, without the clerk asking for age verification or indicating any related dangers.
At least one Blair County shop owner who used to sell the drug has voluntarily pulled the "bath salts" products from shelves.
The store owner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she was approached by a distributor last summer about selling the product. The owner stocked the bath salts and said it wasn't until this winter she noticed the product was attracting "trash" into the store.
"I thought people put it in their baths and it gave them a good feeling or something," the store owner said last week. "When it came out on TV that a girl died, I got rid of it."
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