Bath Salts Terror: Former Addict Describes Horror Of The Drug Behind Miami Cannibal Attack
Jun. 5 2012, Published 10:30 a.m. ET
A shocking video has surfaced showing the terrifying effects of the new designer drug, bath salts, firsthand.
In the video, Freddy Sharp, a drug addict since his early teens, is seen writhing around insanely on the floor, hallucinating and singing to himself as he is strapped to a gurney by paramedics.
Bath Salts is suspected to be the drug that fueled the horrific 'Miami Cannibal' attack against a Miami homeless man last month. As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Rudy Eugene was shot dead after he was found lying naked on homeless man Ronald Poppo, eating his face in a gruesome Silence of the Lambs style rampage. Poppo remains in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital with his nose, mouth and eyes ripped off.
Sharp opened up to CNN about his addiction to Bath Salts, and described his overdose on the drug as the "evilest thing imaginable."
"Fear. Darkness. It felt like impending doom was coming down on me ... I felt like I was about to bust loose and actually hurt somebody," Sharp said about his experience on the potent drug.
"It really actually scared me pretty bad. It felt so evil. It felt like the darkest, evilest thing imaginable."
The 27-year-old said he never felt the need to "eat anybody's flesh" while high, but confessed he felt "10 feet tall and bulletproof."
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, behind the deceptively innocent name is a highly dangerous drug that is sweeping across the country in an extreme epidemic that has caused such alarm that the Drug Enforcement Agency has introduced a temporary year-long ban of the three main chemicals in an effort to curb its production.
“We’ve been talking about these synthetic cathinones for a long time,” DEA spokesperson Barbara Carreno, told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive interview. “The chemicals that have been made temporarily illegal and designated Schedule 1 controlled substances are mephedron, methylone and MDPV – but they are the ingredients, not the products themselves.
“The challenge with synthetic drugs is that any good chemist can tweak their molecular structure and formula and you have a new product, which isn’t illegal,” she explained. “It is hard for the law to keep up with them.
“What is being reported is that these drugs are stimulants or hallucinogens - some are fake Ecstasy, some purport to be fake Meth or LSD. Others are like PCP, where the users become incredibly strong.”
The growing number of startling incidents related to the drug led to the chemicals being placed under control last October, with emergency rooms across the country being filled with patients suffering from dangerous symptoms such as agitation, paranoia, seizures, rapid heart rate and high blood pressure.
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Rather than being confined to big cities like Miami or Los Angeles, “it has spread all over the country. There have been violent crimes and deaths everywhere including Minnesota and Oklahoma,” said Carreno.
The most frightening thing about the new narcotic epidemic is that these dangerous products aren’t sold by dealers on street corners, but instead are widely available at liquor stores, gas stations, and head shops and in order to know exactly what is in each package you have to seize them from the store and have them tested in a lab.
“These are not good people who distribute these drugs. And they are drugs – they are not ‘bath salts,’ they are not ‘plant food,’ they are drugs, the names are just a cover,” emphasized Carreno. “And the people who take them know they are drugs. They snort them, inject them, take them orally or put them on their tongue.
“There are a lot of people who take them that don’t understand the full effect, and for a lot of parents, synthetic drugs are just not on their RadarOnline.com and they don’t understand the risks.”
Freddy Sharp, it seems, does understand the risks and he issued a stern warning to others that are using Bath Salts: "The only thing I can say to them is that if you value your life, you'll stop it and you won't do it anymore, because it will destroy your life. It will destroy your family. It will destroy everything."
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