What Are Bath Salts Made Of?
How Do People Abuse Bath Salts?
Bath salts are a type of “designer” drug of abuse. The reason these drugs are commonly called bath salts is because they tend to be in the form of white powder or crystals. However, these substances are not at all the same as the bath salts in which people bathe. Many of the bath salt drugs include mephedrone, methylone, and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV or MDPK) and are synthetic cathinones, which are found in plants commonly called khat. These drugs and are chemically similar to stimulant chemicals like cocaine or amphetamines. MDPV or MDPK also have chemical similarities to hallucinogens like Ecstasy.
As of 2011, bath salts were the sixth most commonly used drugs, after tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and Ecstasy. Bath salts users tend to be male slightly more often than female and younger than the users of other drugs, and most use it at least weekly. Most bath salts users snort or otherwise inhale the drug, causing a more intense high and higher risk of addiction and complications.
Flakka vs. bath salts
Word on the street is that Flakka (also called gravel or flocka) is a combination of heroin and crack cocaine, or heroin and methamphetamines, but in reality, Flakka is just a newer-generation version of a type of synthetic drug called bath salts (MDPV).
Bath salts, in general, are psychoactive synthetic drugs (designer drugs) made in large quantities in foreign drug labs. These drugs are all related to a broader group of chemical compounds known as synthetic cathinones, chemically similar to a substance found in the khat plant, which is known for its amphetamine-like stimulant effects. Some brand names of synthetic cathinones include Bliss, Vanilla Sky, Lunar Wave, Cloud Nine, and White Lightning. Flakka is the street name for the synthetic cathinone called alpha-pyrrolidinopentiophenone (Alpha-PVP).
Each time one type of bath salt is made illegal, the drug labs change the chemical structure slightly and a new drug that is technically not illegal is created. In the case of Flakka, the new chemical is called alpha-pyrrolidinopentiophenone or alpha-PVP. Drug users take Flakka to get a feeling of euphoria, a heightened sense of awareness, stimulation, and energy.
Flakka was also very inexpensive, costing as little as $5 for a dose. This caused people most at risk, poor desperate drug addicts and homeless people, to use it instead of more expensive drugs like cocaine or methamphetamines.