A new "drug abuse" trend of sniffing bath salts to try to get high is emerging, It appears that more kids are attempting this "trend" resulting in paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, as well as hypertension and chest pain.  

The problem's gotten so bad in the state that of Louisiana the Governor had to make the active ingredient in the bath salts illegal.  

The bath salts contain a chemical called "Mephadrone and Methylenedioxypyrovalerone or MDPV, which is known to be a stimulant that may also cause paranoia and hostility.

About four to five times a day, the Louisiana Poison Center receives a call - not some frantic mother who's child has gotten hold of a household cleaner and not someone whose accidentally overdosed on prescription medication - no, these calls are unusual and unfortunately, becoming less so.  

More and more kids in Louisiana are sniffing fake bath salts trying to get high.  The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals says the salts are sold in packets in convenience stores and gas stations under the names "Ivory Wave, White Lightning, and White  or Red Dove" among others. 

The DEA says MDPV is not approved for medical use in the U.S. but its use is increasing, especially in Europe and Australia. So far, Louisiana accounts for more than half the number of these cases nationwide. There's no word no why the sudden activity.  

Governor Jindal says he's asking the DEA to investigate.  

The head of Louisiana's Poison Control says in his 20 years in that field, he's never seen anything like this.

Look for a white (sometimes tan) wax-like powder, "White Lightning" sold as an "Insect Repellent" or "White Knight" sold as "Bath Salts". It is presently not restricted and will not produce a positive on the urine drug screen. It is "snorted" in an attempt for a cocaine-like high. The substance is not related to cocaine.   

Duration of effect may be prolonged (12 to 24 hours).  

Cases have also been noted in Illinois, Mississippi and Tennessee.  

Please call the poison center if you have any questions.

Now for the good news. Experts say a traditional bath salt that contains sodium chloride (sea salt) or magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) is not what the kids are looking for; so if that's in your bathroom, your kids are safe ... until they discover the next homemade high.  

Do you worry your kids will try this one out?

Truck stops, tattoo parlors and tobacco shops sell the substances in 50-milligram packets for $25 to $50 each, according to an alert issued last month by the U.S. Department of Justice. The powders described as "fake cocaine" have appeared in stores that previously sold the now-illegal synthetic marijuana products known as K2 and Spice, law enforcement officials said.  With the new drugs, "the highs are so high and the lows are so low" that they contributed to the October suicide of a 29-year-old St. Joseph man.  The stories going around about the drugs are truly horrible.  

In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and fatally shot himself after getting high on the salts. One woman is believed to have overdosed on the salts in Mississippi. Another man took a knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly.  

Call Your Poison Center at

1-800-222-1222.

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Heroin Kit

A rise in heroin abuse by teenagers across the country has led one high school to issue an ultimatum to parents: Attend a seminar on the dangers of heroin or your child will banned from the prom. More than 1,000 parents showed up to the forum in Smithtown, N.Y.  

Perhaps your teens high school needs to consider this as well.  

I met a lot of interesting young people during the course of my investigation into the topic of heroin use among teens; I watched kids shoot up, score, suffer through withdrawal and leave for detox and rehab.  One young junkie, who had been using heroin since she was 14, and lost several friends to ODs, stopped cold turkey.  

I spent several weeks following her, and often went to her home.  She was an animal lover and had a pet monkey.  

One day when I visited, she literally had the monkey on her back.   

Clean for months, she began using again, well aware of the potential outcome.

"Why heroin?" I asked. "It's no big deal," she answered.  

It's how all the young junkies answered. That was the most shocking aspect of this investigation to me.  

After all this time, the one thing that still stands out the most was how off-handed and cavalier these kids were about their addiction.  

This isn't the '50s and '60s when heroin was only used by the most lowest-life dregs of society.  

These young junkies today  are Jason the high school football player, Heather the cheerleader and Carl the valedictorian and they are role models--and Jason, Heather and Carl are all high on heroin. It is rampant in schools, I learned.

"You can count the people who aren't on heroin, as opposed to the ones who are," one high school junkie told me.  

So it is no big deal to them; it's like smoking a marijuana joint. To them, pill-taking, pot smoking or shooting heroin are interchangeable. They know how addictive heroin is, but they just don't care. They know their friends are dying from it, but they just don't care.  

And this is the most important part, the key to understanding this rise in the use of heroin: this is not a drug-dazed haze that's making them not be able to make wise decisions, it happened well before they started using. These kids just don't think it's a big deal one way or another--there is no stigma any longer, nor is it a badge of honor. It doesn't make them "cool."  

It's just what everybody does. No big deal. Parents need to know that it's not the taboo that it was to them.  

The biggest clue to why it's become so popular despite its often deadly outcome is that this new generation of junkies sees so many kids who look just like them, act just like them, live right near them, sit next to them in math class, have grown up with them, and have the same family values as them--they're all doing it, all around them. This problem, which is only getting worse, will not change unless the young public's idea of heroin changes. It's bad enough that these kids think that they can just snort it and it's not as dangerous or degenerate as shooting it (they all end up shooting it anyway), nothing seems to be scaring them off--not their vampire-like hunger for the drug, not their sunken eyes and sallow faces,  not even their dead friends or their own near-death ODs.

"Once you like it you fall in love with it," ~ Matthew, age 17.

Natalie Ciappa, a National Honor Society member at her high school on Long Island, star of school plays, and a cheerleader who sang the National Anthem at basketball games, was everything a parent could want - and the furthest thing from the traditional picture of a heroin addict.