Bath salt incident draws police to Taunton Burger King

Taunton —

Police say an incident over the weekend at a local fast food restaurant illustrates the growing menace of so-called bath salts.

The synthetic designer drug, when smoked, snorted or injected, provides a cocaine or amphetamine-like intoxication that can cause hallucinations and paranoia.

Previously popular in Europe, the drug is sometimes sold domestically “under the counter” by unscrupulous convenience store or gas station owners, according to law enforcement authorities.
Taunton police at 9:45 p.m. Sunday responded to the Burger King at 294 Winthrop St. for a report of a distraught individual who was acting irrationally.

Employees and startled customers described how a man ran inside dripping of mud and water and screaming that someone was trying to kill him.

Bystanders allegedly told cops the man — later identified as 31-year-old Eric Conklin of 28 North Walker St. — then began stripping off his clothes, ran into the ladies room and locked himself in.

When an officer knocked on the bathroom door, the unclothed Conklin allegedly opened up and said, “Thank God you’re here.”

Police say during the past few weeks they’ve had numerous run-ins with Conklin, who allegedly has admitted using drugs known on the street as bath salts.

Each time, according to cops, Conklin has been highly agitated, sweating profusely, talking irrationally and claiming that someone is out to get him.

Conklin Sunday night was charged with disturbing the peace. The police report also notes that if he doesn’t get professional counseling and treatment chances are he’s likely to hurt himself or other people.

In May, a 31-year-old Miami man was shot to death after police said he chewed off chunks of flesh from the face of a 65-year-old homeless man.

Police initially suspected the attacker had been high on bath salts, but subsequent toxicology tests revealed marijuana, and not synthetic cathinones, was in his bloodstream when he brutalized the victim and threatened cops.

One night earlier this month, in Taunton, two people allegedly left their car in the middle of Summer Street and ran into the lobby of the police station claiming they had ingested bath salts.

The pair were taken to hospital where they were examined and released.

President Obama on July 9 signed a law identifying the active ingredients in bath salts as illegal. A total of 38 states now ban the sale of bath salts.

But products with names like Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave and Bliss continue to be sold in some places. Authorities in the past have said warning labels, stating the products are not suitable for human consumption, has made across-the-board enforcement difficult.

In Massachusetts the Legislature is expected to pass a measure effectively banning sale of bath-salt products.The House already passed an amendment categorizing as drug trafficking the sale of such amphetamines; the Senate, meanwhile, has until this Wednesday to act.

Taunton Police Chief Edward Walsh says he’s prepared to take measures if lawmakers fail to act. Walsh said if a state law isn’t adopted to ban the sale of bath salt-like crystals, he’ll introduce a municipal ordinance making it illegal.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, said the bath salt issue is “something we’re serious about.”

“I’ve heard a number of horror stories,” Pacheco said. “It’s being looked at very seriously.”

Managers and owners of four Taunton convenience stores on Monday insisted they don’t and never have sold bath salts, which can sell for anywhere between $15 and $35 per gram.

Alie Soufan, owner of Grampy’s Corner Store on High Street, said he’s never seen bath salts but occasionally is asked if he sells them.

Another store owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said after he informed a customer he doesn’t sell bath salts, the man and a friend eventually came back with the drug and asked why he couldn’t keep it in stock.

Peter Ibrahim, owner of Pete’s Mart on County Street, said he’s been queried on occasion by police who suspect he might have sold the potentially deadly product.

Ibrahim, 30, said in the more than eight years he’s owned his store he’s never carried such an item.

“I’ve told them they can come in here with a search warrant if they want; I’ve got nothing to hide,” said Ibrahim, who blames unnamed local competitors with spreading rumors to damage his reputation.

As for the availability of bath salts in the Taunton area, Ibrahim said he knows of at least one storeowner who in the past has sold them under the table.

‘You sold my son bath salts. I’ll kill you’: Furious father smashes up shop that sold boy legal drugs which left him in hospital

• A mother was charged with trespassing two weeks ago after she started shouting at staff in a shop that sold ‘bath salts’
• These drugs can be sold legally in the US as long as they are not marked for human consumption
• In high doses, the chemicals can cause violent behaviour and terrifying hallucinations

into a rage and smashed up a shop that supplied legal ‘bath salts’ type drugs that put his son in hospital.

Justin Avery, 24, was taken to New York’s Samaritan Hospital after snorting a powder labelled ‘glass cleaner’ that his friends had called ‘fake cocaine’.

According to police reports, his father Dan then called the store where his son had paid $20 for the legal high and left a message saying: ‘You sold my kid bath salts and I’ll [expletive] kill you’.

Dangerous trade: ‘Bath salts’ and ‘glass cleaner’ are synthetic highs named after the innocuous products because they can be legally sold if they are marked as not for human consumption

Justin had never used any drug stronger than marijuana, he said, but snorted the glass cleaner for the first time one evening because he was upset and had heard it would give him a buzz.

But by 1.30am his heart was racing wildly, he was sweating heavily and his breathing had become so laboured he thought he would die.

Three days earlier, a friend of the 24-year-old’s had apparently called Avery Sr hallucinating, afraid that people were trying to kill him.

Justin said the friend had also used the so-called ‘glass cleaner’ bought at Tebb’s Headshop, according to syracuse.com.

Avery drove to Tebb’s, based in a little strip mall, carrying a miniature wooden baseball bat in his truck, as usual.

The slight 5’7″, 120-pound man then chased off waiting customers, screaming, ‘You need some bath salts?’

Shop worker Trevor Harding arrived and opened up, while Mr Avery went to his 2003 Ford Explorer and slid the bat into his trousers. He then went into Tebb’s and pretended to be one of the customers he had just chased away.

CRIMEWAVE TRIGGERED BY USERS HIGH ON LEGAL DRUG ‘BATH SALTS’

Bath salts are likely to be stimulant drugs such MPDV or ephedrine. The phrase does not refer to a single chemical, but instead to a range of synthetic drugs that can be sold legally in the US as long as they are not marked for human consumption – hence the misleading name.

In high doses, such drugs can cause violent and unpredictable behaviour, and terrifying hallucinations. Here are just a few of the recent crimes said to have been triggered by the dangerous drugs:

• ‘Miami Cannibal’ Rudy Eugene was thought to have taken bath salts before stripping and pouncing on a homeless man and chewing off his face. He was shot dead. Although he did not take bath salts, it is believed he influenced a number of later attacks.
• Brandon DeLeon, 21, allegedly tried to bite off a police officer’s hand after he was arrested for disturbing customers in a Miami fast food restaurant. He yelled at officers: ‘I’m going to eat you.’ The police report noted that he ‘growled and opened and closed his jaw like an animal.’
• Carl Jacquneaux, 43, allegedly bit a chunk out of his neighbour’s face while on the drug before going to another neighbour’s home in Scott, Louisiana and threatening him at knife point.
• Shane Shuyler, 40, allegedly stripped off and laid naked on a park bench in North Miami while under the influence of bath salts. He exposed himself to a three-year-old girl before chasing her and shouting lewd comments.
• Pamela McCarthy, 35, allegedly stripped naked and began choking and punching her son, four, in the street after taking bath salts. Police used a Taser to subdue her and she went into cardiac arrest and later died.

He asked for bath salts or glass cleaner, he recalled, and Harding put a round blue-and-orange package on the glass countertop.

He claims Harding then pulled out a magazine and opened it to a page that showed him how much glass cleaner to take.

‘That’s when I just went crazy,’ said Avery. He pulled the bat out of his pants and started swinging. He smashed the five-foot-long glass counter and a couple of glass ashtrays. Then he started flinging glass pipes from shelves at  Harding.

‘Here’s a nice one,’ Avery remembers yelling as he threw the pipes. ‘Here’s another nice one.’

He chased Harding back and forth behind the counter and the pair grappled before Avery returned his bat to the car and gave Harding a lecture.

He said he told Harding: ‘You’re a sick man to sell this to these kids, knowing it’s gonna twist their minds. You’re pathetic.’

Then he asked Harding for the store phone and called the police to tell them what he had done.

After 10 to 15 minutes, police arrived and took him into custody. They charged him with two felonies – criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon – which carry a maximum prison sentence of seven years.

The police report says Avery threatened to kill Harding in the store. but Avery said he only intended to scare the clerk.

‘I wanted them to know why I did it,’ he said. ‘The cop asked me and I said, “So people will know. So other parents who don’t even know their kids can buy this type of drug will be aware.”

‘It sparked in my mind: It’s all over. I’ve lived my life for 30 years to do good, and tried to raise my kids to do good. But I couldn’t help it.’

He said he had thought about letting authorities handle it, but the law does not consider those products illegal.

The day after Avery’s violence, federal agents and local police raided Tebb’s and other head shops across the country. Agents seized the Watertown store’s supply of glass cleaner, among other products, Mr Harding said in an interview.

He said said the store did not sell bath salts because they’re illegal, and claimed the shop was being wrongly accused of peddling harmful drugs.

A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent filed an affidavit last week in Syracuse federal court to get a search warrant for the store raids. In it, he listed glass cleaners as one of the names drug sellers use to disguise ‘highly dangerous chemicals that are ingested by recreational drug users’ as a substitute for marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine.

The raids follow months of horrific crimes by people disoriented by synthetic drugs.

Another frustrated parent, a mother in Batavia, was charged with trespassing two weeks ago after she tried to buy bath salts at a head shop there, then started yelling at employees.

Neither police nor prosecutors would comment on their plans for Avery.

‘We don’t want people acting as vigilantes,’ said police Sgt. Joe Donoghue.

Jefferson County District Attorney Cindy Intschert said prosecutors would consider many factors when evaluating the case, as they do in all others.

In his blog, Watertown Mayor Jeff Graham asked, ‘What juror votes to convict the guy for busting up a head shop that was selling bath salts to his 24-year-old son?’

Avery, who earns $2,400 a month setting up double-wide and modular homes, said he was worried about having enough money to hire a lawyer.

‘I was being a father,’ he added.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181018/Justin-Avery-Furious-father-smashes-shop-sold-24-year-old-legal-drugs-left-hospital.html#ixzz22A4MN81T

Bath Salt Wedding Bouquet: A Fool-Proof Way To Turn Your Wedding Party Into The Donner Party

http://www.beau-coup.com

For any brides-to-be looking to potentially turn their special day into a fucking blood bath, you’re in luck…

As was brought to our attention by a friend who’s about to walk down the aisle — under the subject “Just found a winner for our wedding favors. Let’s get weird…,” — several companies offer bath salt bouquets as gifts for bridal parties.

Granted, bath salts have uses other than to get you high enough to eat people — like, for example, taking baths — but given the seemingly endless headlines about cannibalistic bath salt users, perhaps a mani/pedi might be a more appropriate gift for the gals this wedding season.

For the bargain price of $3.95 each, glowing brides can treat their bridal party to a basket of personalized bath salts.

Here’s the description of the gift from “Beaucoup”:

Bathe your senses in luxury with these personalized bath salt favors. Whether you select a seductive scent for your wedding or a soothing scent for your bridal shower, guests will simply purr with pleasure–even before they’ve popped the cork.

Each bottle can be customized with a single initial, 3-letter monogram or text in the font of your choice. The clear plastic bottles are filled with your choice of colored scented bath salts: pink (pomegranate), white (vanilla), blue (tropical blend), green (aloe), purple (black raspberry), or yellow (almond honey). Each 6-oz. bottle measures 2″W x 4.5″H and is topped with a genuine cork. A black or white satin bow completes the look.

That, of course, is assuming the recipient doesn’t smoke, snort, or inject the gift. If one junkie bridesmaid sees a bottle of bath salts as an invitation to get fucked up on synthetic drugs, your wedding party could end up looking more like the Donner Party.

In the past few months, there have been multiple cases of people using bath salts and then — often times while naked — attempt to eat people…or dogs.

Yesterday, we told you about a woman who got high on bath salts while in the hospital after having a baby. She attacked hospital staff after they found her rolling around naked on the floor of a shower.

On Tuesday, there was the case of Karl Laventure, who was found walking around a Georgia golf course naked. When police showed up, he started rambling about Tupac and Biggie before threatening to eat the cops.

Last week, we told you about a Texas man who ate his family’s dog. He, however, was high on synthetic marijuana, which apparently has the same cannibalistic side-effects as bath salts.

Just a day earlier, we reported on a woman who tried to eat a cop while under the influence of bath salts.

A few weeks earlier, for the second time in less than a month, a Florida man — 26-year-old Charles Baker — was arrested for allegedly taking a bite out someone, also while under the influence of bath salts.

About two weeks before that, a Louisiana man also is suspected of being under the influence of bath salts when he gnawed the face of his neighbor.

And lest we forget the story that kicked off the “Zombie Apocalypse” craze — Miami “zombie” Rudy Eugene, who was suspected to be under the influence of drugs at the time of a brutal cannibalistic attack that left his victim, Ronald Poppo, without a face. Eugene, it turns out, was sober at the time of the attack — an autopsy revealed that the only thing in his system was marijuana.

Again, ladies — you’re probably better off just going with the mani/pedi.

Broward may outlaw bath salts, fake pot, aggressive panhandling

Broward County may join the legal crusades against trendy synthetic drugs and aggressive panhandlers.

At their last meeting before a two-month summer recess, Broward commissioners Tuesday asked their attorney to draft laws on both hot issues, to be voted on later this year.

The laws, if passed, would apply countywide except in cities that have conflicting rules on the books, the county attorney’s office said.

• Related
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Since the Miami “zombie” attack in which Rudy Eugene attacked a homeless man, eating part of his face, the use of bath salts as a mind-altering drug has drawn wide public attention. Police are looking into whether Eugene, whom they shot and killed, was under the influence of bath salts before the attack.

Disturbing accounts of people smoking herbal incense as a synthetic version of marijuana also are prompting action to outlaw sales of that substance.

Broward commissioners appeared less enthusiastic, though, over a proposal to outlaw aggressive panhandling, suggested by Commissioner Chip LaMarca. The city of Fort Lauderdale passed an anti-begging law recently, and LaMarca said he’d like to see Broward follow suit.

Visitors shouldn’t be verbally accosted by panhandlers, he said.

But his colleagues voiced numerous concerns, including Mayor John Rodstrom’s repeated worries that the county’s jails would fill to overflowing if the law is passed.

Sheriff Al Lamberti said last week that the jails are at 92 percent capacity, and he’d have to reopen the county stockade if the population passes its maximum.

Commissioner Sue Gunzburger said she’s never had a problem once she says no to people selling items from the street corners and medians.

“I realize it’s a problem for some,” she said, “but we also have to protect their First Amendment rights.”

Commissioners also on Tuesday put some bite into several new laws passed recently, enacting fines of $250 per violation for the first offense, and $500 for subsequent violations.

Here are the laws the fines apply to: a new tow truck ordinance, which attempts to infuse more customer friendliness into operations; a law banning the sale of smoking pipes and devices to minors; a law making it illegal for junk dealers and scrap metal processors to pay cash or to buy restricted items; and a law requiring gas stations to post a phone number or provide an intercom system so disabled drivers can call inside for help pumping gas.

Nashua police convince store owners to stop carrying bath salts

NASHUA – Bath salts, K2, spice. All of it should be a lot harder to find in Nashua after police convinced store owners in the city to stop selling the dangerous synthetic drugs.

Nashua police Lt. David Bailey visited 55 independently owned convenience stores, gas stations and smoke shops recently and found 11 were selling the amphetamine-like chemical that has been blamed for dozens of bizarre and disturbing attacks across the country.

All of the stores agreed to stop selling the synthetic drugs, which are sold as bath salts, herbal incense, glass cleaner and more, after Bailey told them about their effects. He began visiting the stores after a spike in the number of people overdosing on it in the city, he said.

“We got information about increased problems about bath salts and synthetic marijuana,” Bailey said. “We took a proactive approach in what we were seeing as a pretty dramatic spike.”

The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed legislation last month that added 26 substances to the Controlled Drug Substance Act. That should make it more difficult to produce legal versions of the drugs, Bailey said.

A horrifying attack against a homeless man in Miami in May first brought the drugs into the spotlight. Police shot and killed 31-year-old Rudy Eugene after finding him biting off a homeless man’s face on the side of a Florida freeway.

Although bath salts were widely blamed for the “zombie” attack, officials recently determined Eugene was not on the drug when he was killed.

Nevertheless, it grabbed headlines. Since then, dozens of other bizarre incidents, some including cannibalism, have been blamed on the drugs.

Nothing quite that dramatic has happened in Greater Nashua, but there has been an increase of calls for people overdosing on the drug as well as police and EMTs having to deal with combative, violent and unpredictable people high on the drug.

Chris Stawasz, AMR operations manager, said he’s talked with his EMTs about the signs someone exhibits when they are on the drug, what dangers they present and how they should be treated.

“It’s very high at the top of our list right now for potential problems,” he said. “People are extremely violent, unpredictable. It’s a very high level of physical danger in these calls.”

Stawasz said a community-wide meeting between AMR, police, fire and hospital officials will be held soon to talk about how to address the increase in bath salt overdoses.

“Fortunately, we haven’t experienced the really bizarre incidents you read about,” he said. “It’s definitely here. It’s in Nashua. It’s a scary drug.”

Reports of people overdosing on the drug have increased across the state this year, spiking in April, according to data from the Northern New England Poison Control Center.

There were close to 15 calls to the center in April and nearly 10 in May, the latest month for which data was available. The increase in calls began in March 2011 after virtually no reports about the drug from June 2010 until then, according to the NNEPCC data.

The center, which covers New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, took 30 calls about bath salts overdoses in Maine in May 2011, according to the report.

Bath Salts – Naked Man Eat Naked Mans Face Off – Better Hide Yo Kids

Bath Salts, LPQ-79, Miami Man Eats Face and the Zombie Virus are the new weapons of mass destruction. Over the past few weeks we’ve been witness to numerous cannibalistic behaviors from people across the country, triggering thoughts that there just might be a “Zombie Apocalypse.”

Holly Crap are zombies real?

LIST: The Walking Dead! 10 Drugs That Will Turn You Into A Zombie

First came Miami and the case of Rudy Eugene, the 30-year-old man, allegedly high on LSD, who was shot and killed by police after they discovered he was eating the face and brains of a 65-year-old homeless man.

LIST: Things To Know About The Face-Chewing Naked Man Case

In another case, a Maryland college student was arrested for killing his roommate after he told police he ate the victim’s heart and part of his brain after he died.

In San Antonio, a mother beheaded her infant son on orders from “the devil” and reportedly ate a portion of his brain and three of his toes.

In New Jersey, a man stabbed himself 50 times and threw bits of his own intestines at police, with witnesses saying he acted like a zombie.

These incidents are horrifying and shouldn’t be made light of considering that they involve real people and places, but the nature of these crimes continue to fuel the theory that it might be a zombie apocalypse brewing!

The thing is, the cannibal stories we’ve been reading about are the definition of art imitating life. From Mary Shelley’s 1818 publication of Frankenstein, to AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead, we are witnessing first hand what it’s like to live in a zombie society, so to speak.

The script is written, people are behaving like zombies and the government is denying that there’s a zombie conspiracy.

On Friday, Center of Disease Control spokesman David Daigle said in an email:

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead…or one that would present zombie-like symptoms.”

Does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead? You’d think a spokesman for the CDC would have more of an affirmation about the walking dead and have a clear stance on the matter!

After all, zombies look like us, but they’re the undead who slowly rot and survive by feasting on the living, while at the same time turning others into zombies.

With the CDC’s statements and the ongoing cannibalistic stories popping up in the news, maybe there is a “Zombie Apocalypse” coming to a town near you. If there is, here are the signs…