From The Bangor Daily News:

Maine health officials are investigating a cluster of serious bacterial illnesses among users of synthetic bath salts.

Four patients with a history of injecting the drug were sickened by the Group A streptococcal bacterium over the last several weeks, according to a health alert issued by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The common germ is responsible for strep throat and skin problems in its milder form but can also lead to life-threatening infections including the much-feared flesh-eating bacteria.

Two of the cases resulted in streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, which causes a rapid drop in blood pressure and can lead to organ failure. All of the patients were hospitalized, one required treatment in intensive care, and one developed necrotizing fasciitis, a condition that’s known as flesh-eating bacteria in its rare and most dangerous form.

The bacteria likely cropped up among bath salts users not through the sharing of needles but because injecting drugs gives it a way to enter the body, Sears said. For that reason, health officials are also concerned that the infection could strike users who inject drugs of any kind, he said.

Maine CDC has advised physicians and other health providers to be on the lookout for the infections among intravenous drug users, but the public should also be aware, Sears said.

From PBS News:

Dickie Sanders was not naturally prone to depression. The 21-year-old BMX rider was known for being sweet spirited and warm -- a hugger not a hand-shaker. The kind of guy who called on holidays. Who helped his father on the family farm. Who spent countless hours perfecting complicated tricks on his bike.

Yet on Nov. 12, 2010, Sanders was found dead on the floor of his childhood bedroom. He had shot himself in the head with a .22 caliber youth rifle.

An autopsy revealed a powerful stimulant in his system: methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV (a common ingredient in a street drug known as "bath salts").

“Bath salts” are nothing like the epsom salts often added to bathwater; it's just the most common code name given to a specific type of synthetic drugs made in underground labs and marketed as household items. The drugs have been camouflaged as plant food, stain remover, toilet bowl cleaner and hookah cleaner. They've been sold online and in "head shops," businesses that sell drug paraphernalia. The boxes usually contain a foil wrap or plastic bag of powder, though sometimes they take the form of pills or capsules. The color of the powder ranges from white to yellow to brown, the price from $30 to $50. And nearly every box has a label that says “not for human consumption.”

When bath salts first appeared in 2010, the products were crudely packaged -- a label from an ink-jet printer slapped onto a plastic container, Ryan said. But over time, they began to look increasingly more professional and often specifically tailored to the place. Products in Louisiana donned names like Hurricane Charlie, NOLA Diamond, Bayou Ivory Flower. Bath salts had also surfaced in Illinois, Kentucky and Florida, but Louisiana was hit especially hard.

The product that Sanders snorted was called Cloud 9. At the time of his death, he was in a drug program for marijuana abuse, actively attending group meetings and undergoing frequent drug tests. He was told that the drug was legal, a great high and wouldn't show up on a drug test.

From The Examiner:

Miami’s Memorial Day weekend cannibal crime should make every person who ever considered using a synthetic drug, like those sold at gas stations for example, reevaluate that thought very very very quickly.

Rudy Eugene, a 31-year-old black man was allegedly so messed up on a tanked up version of bath salts (referred to by some as bad LSD or a new form of it) that he got naked and violent in such a way that police had to put him down like you would a rabid dog. And it may eventually lead to the death of his victim, if he doesn't survive the vicious attack.

Fatal shots had to be fired to save the victim's life, and one would suspect even the officers if truth be told. And the worst thing is that the Miami-Dade County brutality that occurred this Memorial Day weekend isn't the only such incident there or elsewhere that has occurred recently.

In fact, the use of bath salts like "Ivory Wave" or "Vanilla Sky," which are sold in gas stations and other convenience stores, are playing a role in violent crimes and deaths around the country.

In Muncie, Indiana police believe synthetic stimulate use may have been a factor in the death of a motorcyclist going at excessive speed before crashing. Their follow-up investigation suggests that these synthetic stimulants being sold as "bath salts" or "plant food" may have contributed to that fatality, as well as one other.

In Columbus, Ohio there have already been two police shootings due to "bath salts," with one resulting in the death of the 28-year-old man who held a knife to his girlfriend's neck before police had to shoot him in order to save her.

"These drugs, even on first use, can dramatically change a person's perception of reality," said Paul H. Coleman, who happens to be the president of a facility which treats drug and alcohol dependency in the state. The salts, according to Coleman can "make a person feel everyone is out to get them."

From WDTV.com:

From ABC News:

Flesh-eating bacteria devoured the muscle and skin on the arm of a New Orleans woman after she injected “bath salts,” an increasingly popular stimulant drug. Doctors say the infection is unusual, but might become more widespread as more users inject the drug to get high.

Dr. Robert Russo, an orthopedic resident at the hospital, said he’s uncertain how the flesh-eating bacteria got into the woman’s arm. It could have been lurking on the needle she used or in the bath salts themselves. But he said he worries that the drug’s growing popularity means more people will be at risk for infection.

“Just from people using more needles, you could see a rise in these kinds of cases,” he said. “And the risks of using this drug, it’s not just getting your arm taken off. The drug is crazy.”

Bath salts are a powder made of amphetamine-like chemicals, such as methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MPDV), mephedrone and pyrovalerone, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Once sold legally online and in drug paraphernalia stores, users mostly snorted or swallowed it to get high. Recently, injection has become a more popular route, because it delivers the drug’s effects faster and more powerfully. The Drug Enforcement Administration made the drug illegal in September.