Monday's county-wide drug raid, led full force by local authorities, raised a lot of questions regarding "bath salts" and its prevalence in Delaware County.
The 10 raids, which began simultaneously Monday at approximately 9:30 a.m., resulted in seven arrests, and the closure of six convenience stores in the area.
Hardeep Singh, Manpreetpal Singh, Kameljit Singh, Ramesh Kumar, Harpreet Singh and Phulbir Singh were all arrested during the raids and were taken to the Delaware County Jail.
Hardeep Singh and Manpreetpal Singh were released Tuesday after posting bail, and prosecutors announced Wednesday morning that Phulbir Singh's bail will be set at a $1 million cash bond.
Authorities believe that he may be a flight risk due to the fact he has recently been hesitant in providing a correct name to authorities, according to The Star Press.
Ball Memorial usually treats between 15 and 20 cases of bath salts use weekly or about three to four each day, said John Lee, an emergency room physician at IU Ball Memorial Hospital. Most of the patients they treat for bath salt use are in their 20s or 30s and have usually tried other substances before experimenting with the drug.
"That's just what we see," he said. "It's not accurate of the number of people who are actually abusing it. Not 100 percent of them come in here, of course."
Bath salts are a new type of designer drug that mimic the effects of illegal drugs such as LSD and cocaine, but aren't deemed illegal.
Lee said those who use bath salts experience side effects that vary from those of other users.
"The chemical make-up varies from place to place," Lee said. "Every time someone would start to crackdown on it, they would just change the chemical make-up of it so people could continue to sell it."
Reactions to the drug also vary, and depend on where the person received the drug from.
"We see a lot of paranoia, a lot of dissociation where people aren't connected with reality," Lee said. "We see a lot of people with skin problems because they inject them under their skin, so there's a lot of what we call necrosis, basically the skin and muscle is being eaten away by the chemicals that are in the bath salts."
Although Ball Memorial sees more than 50 of these cases each month, Gene Burton, director of Public Safety, said the bath salts trend is something he hasn't seen hit campus yet.
Regarding the lasting effects of ridding the city of bath salts, Burton said it may not be something that is seen immediately.
"The problem is with the illegal activity like this, when you stop one person it seems to be there is someone else that is willing to come along and try and fill that void," Burton said. "It's a problem that law enforcement officials will continue to have to monitor."
The bath salts problem is something that Lee said they have been seeing in the hospital for months now, and it is encouraging that the authorities are beginning to notice the problem, calling it a "positive step in the right direction."
"There's this misconception that if you can buy it over the counter at a convenience store, it's not going to hurt you," Lee said. "And that's a major misconception."
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