Narco Polo: Legal drug linked to more cannibalism than bath salts

Visit Rob Arthur's blog for the complete cartoon and his additional comments. (Not for weak stomachs.)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

Preston Sturges

“………A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. “
- Robert
  
  Shlup-flup-flup-shlup-shlup!
Cowicide

Thank you for calling alcohol a drug. Not enough people do.
- http://twitter.com/robarthur9 Robert R. Arthur
  
  You’re welcome Cowicide. The cow is my favorite animal.
  - Cowicide
    
    People that like cows are my favorite animal. ^-^
- bloopeeriod
  
  Came here to say this in those exact same words. Spooky.
evets32

REALLY bad timing for a pro-pot audience, Mark.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/us-usa-miami-shooting-idUSBRE85Q1ON20120627
- Cowicide
  
  It’s true. I’ve eaten quite a few females after smoking marijuana.
  - bloopeeriod
    
    Yummy girls. But seriously, most of us just opt for dorito`s.
    - Cowicide
      
      Many innocent Doritos have died at the hands of pot smokers.
Lex Pelger

For more debunking of the bath salt craze, here’s the Good Doctor’s piece on the history, biochemistry and (R-rated) anecdotal use of this weird little class of drugs:http://altvariety.com/cathinones-please-dont-call-them-bath-salts/
- http://twitter.com/robarthur9 Robert R. Arthur
  
  Greetings Lex, been meaning to e-mail you.
Scratcheee

So Dahmer was 13 when he died?
- jackie31337
  
  I assume the dates are the dates of the crime(s), not the birth and death dates of the perpetrator(s).
  - http://twitter.com/robarthur9 Robert R. Arthur
    
    Actually Scratchee is correct, eating people takes their life force and makes you younger so Dahmer was only 13 when he died.
liquidstar

I m just glad you mentioned Dahmer. He s kinda my go-to guy for cannibalism too. Given the current public craze, perhaps we should support a “brains-will-give-you laughing-disease” movement? All joking aside, the “bath salts” thing is strange, it seems that televised media has just discovered it. Remember that weird Alzheimer thing with designer drugs a few years back?
heckblazer

Of course, it shouldn’t be too surprising that a drug that has been widely available for all of recorded history has more cases linked to cannibalism than a drug that has existed for, what, a year? You could probably link more cases of *anything* to alcohol than to bath salts for the same reason. I have read a plausible reason for associating bath salts with crazy behavior. It’s not that the drug itself makes you act crazy, it’s that it’s easy to take too much and end up being wide awake for three days straight. Lack of sleep for that long will cause a psychotic break.

That said, people do tend to underestimate how dangerous alcohol is precisely because it’s been widely available for millennia. Just for starters people do die from alcohol poisoning, and withdrawal can be lethal. That’s more than can be said about, say, marijuana.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

All of this is irrelevant to a certain extent, given that Mr Face-Eater turned out not to have any bath salts in his system. Which comes as no surprise to anyone who’s familiar with the usual “Horrible unnatural crime? Oh my God, he must have been on [insert-name-of-currently-sensationalized-drug]!” reflex of the media.

He did turn out to show traces of THC. From what I’ve read, it seems that violent crimes connected with marijuana in isolation are so rare as to be nearly nonexistent. In most cases where someone is alleged to have acted violently under the influence of cannabis, it’s usually found that they had ingested something else as well, most often alcohol, or that they weren’t right in the head. My guess is that sooner or later we’ll see reports that Mr Face-Eater had showed signs of mental illness in the past.
Teller

In Dahmer’s case, I think it was the wiring, not the electricity.
- http://www.facebook.com/abcdudeman Corey Salts
  
  Exactly. Alcohol wasn’t the force behind his actions. I think he just used it to make him a bit braver. Also, he was an alcoholic at a very early age.
dblclick

Calling it “bath salts” or as was more common in the UK “plant food” is quite a facitious way of reffering to these legal highs. What is most likely in these packets are substituted cathinones such as MDPV, Mephedrone, Methylone, Butylone, Flephedrone etc. A little reading online suggests MDPV is the more popular legal stimulant included in these branded packets in the USA, where as it was mephedrone in the UK. Potentially due to MDPVs similarity to Crystal Meth? Either way thse drugs do not cause cannabalism, amphetamine psychosis on the other hand….