The state Pharmacy Board has moved to permanently ban so-called “bath salts,” a new designer drug that mimics the effects of cocaine, LSD, ecstasy or methamphetamine and that has gained popularity across the nation.
The ban targets the synthetic marijuana and synthetic stimulants that are key to bath salts, as well as other designer drugs such as Spice and K-2.
“This is just a way to try to keep ahead of the game,” state Department of Health spokeswoman Julie Graham said Monday. “Even if they try to change the existing formulation of the drug, it will still (be) covered under the ban.”
The Pharmacy Board temporarily banned the drugs in April. The permanent ban will be in effect by Nov. 3 and gives law enforcement clear authority to prosecute the manufacture, sale and possession of these chemicals.
Washington is one of a growing list of states that have taken action against bath salts, which are inexpensive and easy to find on the Internet. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration recently announced a yearlong, nationwide ban against the substances.
The drugs have been at the center of a new wave of worried calls to poison control centers in Washington and nationwide. Last year, the centers received about 300 calls about the synthetic drugs. So far this year, they have logged more than 4,700.
Bath salts are sold in small packets labeled Ivory Wave, Purple Wave, Ocean Snow, Lunar Wave, Scarface and Hurricane Charlie, among other names. The product usually is snorted but also can be smoked, injected or swallowed, according to the DEA.
Like cocaine and other stimulants, bath salts initially make people feel energized and happy, experts said. When the initial high dies down, users take more and can end up addicted, hallucinating, panicked and violent.
The drug was a factor in the April deaths of a Spanaway couple.
Toxicology tests showed Army Sgt. David Stewart and his wife, Kristy Sampels, both 38, had a chemical associated with bath salts in their systems when they died April 5.
Stewart fatally shot Sampels, then himself as he fled from a Washington State Patrol trooper on Interstate 5 in Tumwater. Pierce County sheriff’s deputies later found their 5-year-old son dead in the family’s Spanaway home.
Investigators found packets of bath salts in the home, on Stewart and in his car.
Staff writer Stacey Mulick and the Minneapolis Star Tribune contributed to this report.
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