So dude in Miami eats 80% of homeless man's face off due to doing a drug called "Bath Salts". Bath Salts are NOT the lovely things you buy in the stores. This is a nickname or moniker for something more sinister and is not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration.
To make matters worse, dude in Maryland eats the heart and brain of another man. Unknown if it was caused by Bath Salts.
Here are two videos discussing this rising epidemic
ABC Nightline from May 30, 2012
Check out this great MSN video: 'The Hansen Files': Bath Salts
Here is my RANT
Idiots who make these drugs did not take much organic chemistry and are pre-med flunkies. It is my understanding, that hardcore chemistry is no longer taught in pre-med or medical school. So there is complete glossing over the seriousness of medicinal chemistry. All the information is online, so why think about how much is needed to be known. Besides, ignoramous mentality is: "Get some Chinese Post Doc to do the slave labor"...
Here is what is wrong with that scenario - a base drug component - say like the active ingredient in coffee - caffeine is rearranged at the atomic level with a series of reactions requiring a salt, an acid, something to make it a solid form, then dries it out, then allows it to be baked.
Issue is this not kitchen cooking although it sounds similar. There are issues of MOLARITY AND pH involved here. I doubt these "drug manufacturer's" comprehend the necessary chemistry required to calculate nmol concentrations from a pipetman. Or how much diluent is needed to tritrate into the necessary pH range. In fact, I'd venture that they don't give a $@%&.
And most of these fools are pre-med or pre-pharm flunkies. I know, because I have had to teach CLINICIANS how to calculate a concentration of drugs based on the molecular weight.
NO that is not to say the standards should be increased for illegal drugs! That is NOT what I am saying. What I am saying is to compound the issue of illegal drug use, there is also, people who are making bad drugs that have probably no substance that makes one euphoric and only toxic chemicals left in them that no wonder we have Zombie Apocalypse happening.
Anyone who wants to do bath salts versus getting help and treated, here. Give me your brain and I'll stick it in CH3CN, with Chromic Acid pH 1, titrate some KOH in there to emulsify it, the extract every thinking molecule with Tritrol reagent mixed in the Hexanes:Isopropanol. I'll rearrange it with beta-mercaptoethanol mixture, add some TEMED and complete mini to freeze up your proteins and add some BIS-acrylamide without crosslinking. There! No functional brain! Good for you!
