The Case For Bath Salts

A guest contributor’s bold, unique, and humorous stance on a potentially dangerous narcotic…

by: Christopher Rockwell

The thing is I have always been first in line to try any drug that doesn’t involve a needle.  That is just who I am.  But I am beginning to question myself as the stories I read about bath salts make me nervous to try it.  And the reason why I am worried and questioning is that this is a very soft and out-of-character reaction to reading some possibly exaggerated stories on the internet.  That is, stories of people doing crazy shit on acid didn’t stop me when I was younger and thank fucking god.  I mean I wouldn’t be the man I am today without eating countless hits and drops.  No way.  It’s not that I became in touch with spiritual shit or whatever because of acid, quite the opposite….I just got to explore my brain a bit.  Should parent-driven ((being a parent either dampens my point or increases it)) face-eating paranoia keep me from trying a drug that has actually been being used for years without stories of flesh meals because maybe this drug allows me to explore my brain a little bit as well…..and have some fun.  I recently did Special K again after over a decade hiatus and the first thought I had when digging myself out of that hole was “where has that been all my life!!!” or at least…”why did I deprive myself for so long?”  I mean few and far between, of course, but that shit is hell fire.  What if bath salts are too?

I recently read in a Spin.com article ((I am not proud of my source…believe me)) that bath salts are a lab-brewed drug that unpredictably mimics a freakish combination of coke, meth, and Ecstasy.  I have two words for that….yes and please.  I mean I really don’t fuck with meth but as for the other two; one is my bread and the other my butter.

Bath Salts first came into public consciousness ((once again according to my unflappable source, a music magazine)) in 2010 in Louisiana where one of the first Code-Red warnings about bath salts emerged, when a user lost her arm and part of her shoulder after she shot herself up and sparked a flesh-eating bacteria.  Since then we have heard a few just flat out awful stories about peoples behavior on bath salts.  It does make one pause.  But countless whipped-up exaggerated stories have tried to ruin the fun for years now.  Reefer Madness comes to mind.

Our knowledge about their precise chemical composition and short-and long-term effects is limited…but that has always been the risk with street drugs.  A whole generation is in lay waiting to find out what the long term effects of ecstasy are going to be.  To see when and in what way all those college raves or shows or whatever you were into are going to come back to haunt.  How is this any different?  Am I supposed to start listening to the professionals now?

Hasn’t it always been the case that some people can handle their shit and some can’t?  If you can’t do acid or even weed because it makes you paranoid then it’s your job, your responsibility, to abstain.  If it gives you the thrill of your life then smoke em if you got em.  Maybe these stories we hear are about the people who should be staying far away from bath salts, or for that matter any drug.  Maybe they just flat out can’t hang.  Maybe the face eater in Miami would have done that anyways…a scary thought but who knows ((This point brings to mind a recent ATM piece foreshadowing the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, ‘Greyworld))’?  He had to have some other problems.  He didn’t just have a bad day.

I am not sure I want to dive in without further investigating the issue.  Maybe some word of mouth recommendations, either way, will put me over the top or put the desire to bed.  But I don’t think I would eat someone’s face on bath salts.  But then again do you really want to take that chance?  Part of me does…yeah.

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