Zombie Apocalypse: Bath Salts Emergency Calls Increase Dramatically in Indiana

Poison control officials of the state of Indiana have said they’ve experienced a “dramatic” spike in the number of calls related to the use of and exposure to the new street synthetic drug known as bath salts.

“This is becoming a big problem,” said officials who claimed they received only 300 calls about bath salts in 2011, while so far in 2012 the number has risen to an astonishing 9,000 bath salts-related calls – according to reports from The Star Press.  

James Mowry, Indiana’s Poison Center Director, said the use of bath salts in the Hoosier State has accelerated dramatically, and blamed the drug’s highly potent and dangerous stimulants (which he compared to synthetic cocaine) for the “hallucinations and paranoia” it produces on its users. According to Mowry, two bath salts-related deaths were reported in the state last year.

Though the state’s legislature passed a law earlier this year banning bath salts, the drug is still readily available online, in head shops and in convenience stores. It is believed, though not confirmed yet by toxicological reports, that Rudy Eugene, “the Miami Causeway Zombie,” who chewed off over 70% of his victim’s face during the gruesome Memorial Weekend attack, was under the influence of bath salts.

Additional bath salts-related incidents have been reported across the country since then, including an unfortunate instance during which a New York suburban mom died of a cardiac arrest after having to be teasered by police to avoid a maddening attack on her 3-year-old son; and another woman, from Missouri, who ripped off her neighbor’s nicotine patch right before dropping on all fours and dig the ground “like a dog would.”