'Bath Salts' and designer stimulants facing multiple state bans

Bath salts that can produce a methamphetamine-like high when ingested would be outlawed under a bill passed Thursday by the Kansas Senate.

Bath salts containing cathinones, which were being legally sold in the state, have been linked to recent cases of addiction and suicide.

The Senate's version, a substitute for HB 2049, also addresses synthetic marijuana, known as K-3.

Last year, the Kansas Legislature banned a synthetic type of marijuana called K-2, only to find dealers altering the drug just enough to skirt the law, said Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a Topeka Republican...

Schmidt said. "Law enforcement has noticed an increase in activity with these drugs and we needed to address it."

Louisiana, Florida and North Dakota already have bans for these types of bath salts.

And in New Jersey;

Diane Parisio of Cranford said Tuesday that she believes her son William was under the influence of the salts around the time authorities allege he killed his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Schmidt, at his Greaves Place home. Both the victim and her alleged killer were students at Rutgers University.

New Jersey Press Media newspapers broke the story Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Assembly Deputy Speaker John McKeon, D-Essex, and Stender announced the pending legislation, which would make it a third-degree crime punishable by three to five years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines to manufacture, distribute or possess products containing mephedrone or methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.

"I think because it sounds so innocuous -- 'bath salts'-- it's hard to believe," Stender said Wednesday from her Scotch Plains office. "But we're trying to stay two steps ahead of the criminals." Stender noted that the penalties proposed in the legislation, which she said has been in the works for nearly two months, would be similar to those imposed against the manufacture, distribution or possession of so-called "daterape" drugs such as gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and benzodiazepines.

How many permutations of molecular jiggering do we need to go through before we all realize this whole brain-hacking game is absolutely crazy.