It’s amazing the things you learn from a newspaper.

A couple of weeks ago, in these very pages, I read about a worrisome rise in the abuse of two illegal drugs: bath salts and synthetic marijuana.

Synthetic marijuana sounded pretty bad, but I was alarmed — and intrigued — to learn that people were using bath salts to get high.

There were no quotation marks around the words “bath salts” to suggest that this was an ironic new street name for a familiar illegal drug.

The piece went on to say that bath salts can be “snorted, smoked, or injected,” and then described a product that sounded suspiciously like the humble Epsom salts that sit next to the bathtub, ready to be deployed against a sore back or aching calves.

But these dangerous new bath salts are not Epsom salts, nor are they designed to be added to a tub. The decision to omit quotation marks was editorially sound: these crystals, which are sold under product names like “Ivory Wave,” “Vanilla Sky,” and “Bliss,” and which contain synthetic stimulants like mephedrone, MDPV, and methylone, are packaged in toiletry jars labeled “bath salts,” with the accompanying phrase: “Not for human consumption.”

The wording on the label is cynical and legally motivated. By calling the crystals “bath salts,” and making the fictional claim that they’re meant for the tub, the manufacturers initially managed to to skirt drug laws that didn’t address products you added to bathwater.

Of course, the manufacturers, and the stores that sold these products, knew full well that the powder was headed straight for the human bloodstream, where it acts as a powerful stimulant. Unfortunately, it also acts as a poison. Users of the drug have had severe reactions ranging from agitation and violent behavior to hallucinations and suicidal thinking, and sometimes even liver and kidney failure.

In 2011, the number of calls to poison control centers involving these dangerous new “bath salts” (I’m giving them honorary quotation marks from here on out, to simplify matters) soared northward of 6000, which was a twenty-fold increase over the previous year.

So. A dangerous new drug arrives on the scene, cloaked in the false respectability of a bath product, and hiding behind the legally ambiguous status of a class of synthetic stimulants. Poison control centers and local law enforcement take notice of an alarming rise in cases related to “bath salts.” Legislators spring into action.

In 2011, 34 states — including Pennsylvania — enacted laws banning “bath salts.” On October 21st, 2011, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) stepped in and used its emergency powers to outlaw the synthetic stimulants in them. The ban, which lasts one year, was meant to give the FDA time to determine whether they should be included with other drugs like marijuana and cocaine under the aegis of the Controlled Substances Act.

Nation-wide, state legislators rose to the challenge of closing the loophole which enabled “bath salts” to be sold over the counter in gas stations and head shops to buyers of any age. The U.S. Congress took up the issue, as well, and on December 8th, the House passed H.R. 1254, which would amend the Controlled Substances Act to include synthetic stimulants like the ones in “bath salts.”

H.R. 1254 passed by a vote of 317 to 98. This was a bipartisan vote on a sensible measure that would give law enforcement the tools it needed at the federal level to keep “bath salts,” and other drugs like it, off the shelves of stores like Hemp’s Above, which is just over Blue Mountain in Mechanicsburg.

Where is H.R. 1254 now?

Stalled in the Senate, where Sen. Paul Rand of Kentucky is preventing it from reaching a floor vote.

This is a frustrating aspect of the federal legislative process, whereby a single senator can put a “hold” on a motion. The hold can be overridden, but only if 2/3s of Senators present agree to do so.

Before the 1970s, holds like Senator Rand’s were relatively rare, but they’ve become commonplace as the Senate — along with the rest of the federal government — has become more and more polarized.

Senator Rand has advanced his reasons for the hold, some of them spurious, some of them politically expedient, but chief among them his belief that drug enforcement is a matter for the states, not the federal government. This is consistent with his Libertarian views.

But here’s a case where federal power is needed to stay a step ahead of the manufacturers of these dangerous drugs, who have become adept at making tiny alterations to their recipes to keep them “legal,” but no less poisonous.

Rather than a test case for Libertarianism, the hold on H.R. 1254 by Senator Rand is a textbook illustration of ideological obstructionism, despite the common-sense efforts of good people on both sides of the aisle to keep a killer drug off the streets.

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 19 April 2012

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com