http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1206/06/ijvm.01.htmlJANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Designer Drug Causing Violent Behavior?Aired June 6, 2012 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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And also tonight, we`re talking about another very serious and extremely important health issue which everybody in our country needs to be aware of. It is the widely popular use of a new designer rug called bath salts. Now, that`s not what you put in your tub. These are highly addictive drugs that are causing violent and even psychotic behavior.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL (voice-over): Tonight, more and more cases of incomprehensible violence being tied to the designer drug bath salts. The drug now linked to a Louisiana man cops say bit another man`s face. This on the heels of the Miami man suspected to be to be on the very same drug, who ate the face of a homeless man. Hear what that now-dead suspect`s girlfriend has to say about it tonight.
Why are these so-called bath salts still for sale? We`re talking to experts, and we`re taking your calls.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know there are cases these days of people taking bath salts and things like that and doing terrible, violent, bizarre things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve never experienced anything like that with bath salts or anything like that before.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s worse than anyone could ever imagine, ever. It`s the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For 20 bucks, people are buying this, bath salts to get high, and its high is causing people to wind up here in the hospital.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: A naked man named Rudy Eugene viciously tore into another man`s face. Now we hear that Rudy Eugene may have been using bath salts and that this strange new drug was possibly behind his deranged attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bath salts could definitely have done this. We also know that it causes extreme paranoia, delusions and hallucinations.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live from New York City tonight.
It has happened again. Another baffling case of psychotic violence that cops say could be linked to the use of so-called bath salts. Tonight, at least three cases of flesh eating across the southern United States could be tied to the scary drug that`s actually legal in 17 states. Why? I`m asking that question tonight.
We told you about the Miami man who was shot and killed by cops because he was eating the flesh off of a homeless man`s face. And it was all caught on surveillance cameras.
Well, now, cops say that the attacker may have used bath salts before he became psychotically violent. His girlfriend held a news conference just a little while ago, expressing shock and saying she had absolutely no knowledge that he had a drug problem. Listen to this.
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YOVONKA BRYANT, GIRLFRIEND OF RUDY EUGENE: Rudy never drank alcohol or used drugs around me. I only saw him smoke a marijuana cigarette once. I am looking forward to learning the results of the toxicology report, and I hope that no one will ever have to go through or suffer what Rudy and his victim did.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: And this isn`t the only case involving flesh eating and alleged bath salt use. Cops say a man in Louisiana attacked his neighbor.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During the attack, the suspect bit a chunk of the victim`s face off.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: So what happens when somebody takes this drug? Let`s listen to a self-admitted ex-bath salt addict talk about his wrenching experience.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve never experienced anything like that doing bath salt or anything like that before. And it really actually scared me pretty bad, because I was hallucinating about being in a mental institution, in an insane asylum, basically, and something about Jason Bourne and getting possessed by him. And I felt -- I flipped out all kinds of crazy.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Look at him. Look at him here. He`s a totally different person. Look at him on bath salts. And some people say that this kind of makes you feel evil and demonic.
Do you think bath salts should be banned nationwide? I certainly do. Get rid of it. Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297.
Straight out to my exclusive guest. He goes only by the name Tyler, who says he was addicted to bath salts for two long months before getting clean 36 days ago.
First of all, Tyler, as somebody who`s sober 17 years, those first few days are the toughest, especially, apparently, with this particular drug. Tyler, how did you get involved with bath salts? Where did you get it, and tell us the story?
TYLER (via phone): Well, I was currently getting it from a strip club at one time. It`s also being sold at gas stations. I got introduced to it first hand by the strip club owner, and it`s a pretty expensive drug to buy.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Describe the high, because obviously nobody wants to become psychotic. Nobody wants to suddenly be uncontrollable and attacking people, but apparently this high is quite extraordinary and highly addictive. Tell us about that. What does it feel like?
TYLER: It`s -- it`s super addictive. You really don`t know that you have a problem the entire time you`re on it. And once you keep using for longer periods of time, you do feel like you`re possessed. And you feel evil and you feel like the whole world is out to get you and you pretty much just lose control.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did you feel paranoid? Did you exhibit any strange behavior?
TYLER: Definitely. I was constantly looking out my windows and trying to figure out who was trying to follow me. And I felt like the government was out to get me. I felt like I honestly was possessed by the devil. But at the time I had no idea I had a problem until I went through treatment and realized that I had huge problems.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What does a person act like when they`re high on bath salts? A&E actually followed a bath salt user while he was doing drugs, and you`ve got to see this from A&E`s "Intervention." It`s scary.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He built a weapon to fight the phase people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has obsession with building things to combat the voices.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: This guy is using his golf club with a bunch of other stuff.
Dr. Alexander Garrard, clinical toxicologist, Poison Control Center. He`s using golf clubs to create weapons to fight invisible people that he calls shadow people. He became kind of, well, seemingly a lunatic. What happens, Dr. Alexander Garrard, to the inside? I`ve heard people say that they feel like they`re boiling up inside. What goes on?
DR. ALEXANDER GARRARD, CLINICAL TOXICOLOGIST: These new, synthetic bath salts are just -- it`s a real threat here to the country. They are a mix between, like amphetamines and cocaine. They take, really, what`s the worse out of each drug class and they all combine it into a new, synthetic compound. And we really have no idea what`s in it. We have an idea, but there`s a lot of adulterants, a lot of contaminants and all those things could affect what we`re seeing.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to go to Maddie Garrett. She`s a reporter with KATC in Louisiana. Tell us about the Louisiana case which is really horrifying.
MADDIE GARRETT, REPORTER, KATC: That`s right. We do know that a man not only attacked an elderly woman before going to an acquaintance`s house, an ex-wife`s new boyfriend. He didn`t know him and attacked him in his front yard. He bit off a large chunk of his face. And that victim actually had to spray him with wasp spray to try to stop the attack.
And it didn`t even end there. He went to another acquaintance`s house, threatened him with a bloody knife and told him he needed to steal his gun. He was threatening to harm that person and himself. It wasn`t until later when he left with that gun that police were able to apprehend him.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Experts say taking bath salts is like being on mushrooms, meth, coke, all at one. It`s been compared to PCP except stronger. Watch this from A&E`s "Intervention," which shows a bath salt addict in the middle of a hallucination.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Skylar will be distracted by shadows he thinks he sees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little shadow walked by. Don`t you see it? Yes. You can feel it, actually. I mean, it kind of sucks, but that`s his head right there. Oh, my God. Yes. That`s the body.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: He`s seeing invisible people. Jon Lieberman, investigative reporter, what is the status of this? Is it an epidemic?
JON LIEBERMAN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, I`ve got to tell you, cops that we`re talking to say that we`re on the verge of an epidemic. We had crack in the `80s. We had crystal meth in 2000. And they believe that this could be the next drug.
And I mean, they point to certain cases that are just -- that are just crazy. A Maine woman who thought her teeth were filled with ticks and so she tried to cut them out with a knife. Another guy hops out of his car in Maine and starts hitting other cars with pieces of wood.
Here`s the biggest problem. This drug is so readily available. Banned or not, these bans aren`t doing anything. Today online I found, under no fewer than 50 different names, bath salts. They`ll ship them to you overnight if you want them.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tyler, you used bath salts. Did you feel yourself becoming violent? And what about this face eating, this eating of human flesh? What is behind that, do you think?
TYLER: Yes. If you use it long enough, I feel like you will end up into that flesh-eating mode. Luckily, I only used it for two months, and I got to the paranoia stage, where I was seeing shadow people. I was taking apart electronics and pretty much everything that you guys have been describing besides the cannibal stage. And if people continue to use, it`s going to get ridiculous.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, this is a terrible drug, because it takes the combination of methamphetamine and the paranoia and the aggressiveness, and the LSD, the hallucinations, and PCP, the extreme paranoia that you get, and combines it into one and has unpredictable effects on human behavior.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Unpredictable? That`s an understatement. Bath salts suspected in the Miami flesh-eating incident. A homeless man lost most of his face, because it was gnawed off.
Here`s what the alleged attacker`s girlfriend said just a little while ago in a news conference.
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BRYANT, GIRLFRIEND OF RUDY EUGENE: Rudy never drank alcohol or used drugs around me. I only saw him smoke a marijuana cigarette once. Rudy and I never discussed cannibalism or voodoo, and most likely he was given a drug without his knowledge.
I am looking forward to learning the results of the toxicology report, and I hope that no one will ever have to go through or suffer what Rudy and his victim did.
GLORIA ALLRED, ATTORNEY: Had she had any indication that Mr. Eugene could or would engage in an act of cannibalism, she never would have allowed him around her three children.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Preliminary toxicology reports show Rudy Eugene did have pot in his system, but they`re waiting for the tox results to come back to confirm or deny whether he was using bath salts. Police do suspect it. Bryant believes Rudy Eugene was given the drug without his knowledge, if in fact, he was given the drug.
Look at these brand names for bath salts. How would somebody know? Perhaps he was given bath salts surreptitiously by somebody. I mean, this is absolutely a nightmare.
Wendy Murphy, former prosecutor, you can buy it anywhere. It costs only 20 bucks, and it makes you psychotic to the point, as one of the users just said it. He`s in recovery, thank God. He said if he had continued to do it, he probably could have ended up flesh eating human flesh, as well.
WENDY MURPHY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: You know, Jane, I don`t know whether to cry, vomit or make a joke about zombies. This kind of story is so disturbing. I`ve never seen anything like this, much less in these high numbers.
And I hope your show scares people because, you know, the down side of talking a lot about this is you see copycats and more people doing it: "Ooh, that sounds cool."
I`m a little bit perplexed by the connection between you turn demonic and you start eating flesh. Because, you know, with "The Exorcist," nobody was biting faces. I have to believe that there`s something about the mixture of culture and its increased willingness to sell violence as exciting and sexy.
And you combine that with a drug like this and you get people literally doing inhumane things that 20 years ago, no matter what the hell drug you were on, you wouldn`t be doing this.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I don`t disagree with you. I think that the horrific stuff that`s on the Internet and some of these movies is such violence that when people are drugged out it occurs to them, where it wouldn`t have occurred to them, maybe back in the 1940s or `50s.
I want to go out to the phone lines. Casey, Ohio, your question or thought. Casey.
CALLER: I, Jane, I want to share a little bit of knowledge with what I`ve experienced with bath salts.
I have an uncle who, when this came out, became very highly addicted to bath salts very quickly. And the most gentle man in the whole world, he would never harm anyone (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
One night, he was so mad and so angry on bath salts that he physically assaulted me, beat me up, knocked my teeth out, four of my front teeth. This was a man who was like my father who raised me. He was injecting it, injecting bath salts.
And -- and it took him going to jail. And you know, he`s straight now that he`s out. And we`re in Ohio so it`s illegal, but you can still find it just like marijuana is illegal. You can find marijuana.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Casey, that`s a horrifying story, and I want to go to Jameson Monroe, founder of the Newport Academy, an addiction specialist. You can snort it. You can shoot it up. Do you think it`s more intense if you do it in a certain way that could make you more violent?
JAMESON MONROE, FOUNDER, NEWPORT ACADEMY: Just like with any drug, Jane, if you smoke something or shoot it up, it`s going to get into your bloodstream a lot quicker and be a lot more intense.
But we`re seeing kids at Newport Academy that are drinking it, that are mixing it in food, that are sprinkling it on top of a bowl of marijuana and smoking it that way. Any way to get it into your system. What`s crazy is that kids are able to go buy this at the head shop with no I.D. for $20 that their parents gave them for their lunch money and go get high for six to eight hours and become immediately addicted.
I`ve never seen any drug this addictive or create this type of mania in such a short time period. You don`t have to be a drug addict. You can be a regular pot smoker, try this stuff one time, and it`s off to the races. It`s that addictive.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s worse than anyone could ever imagine -- ever. It`s the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is attacking nervous systems, muscular systems, and brain activity and deteriorating it far sooner than any other drug I`ve ever seen, and I`ve been around meth, coke, heroin, crack.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Straight out to HLN`s very own Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Dr. Drew, we need your help here. This is legal in so many states. And from what I`ve been able to determine, it`s under so many different brand names that have so many different ingredients that they ban one ingredient while they just mix it up and they make it with another ingredient. And they just haven`t reissued it. So it`s very hard to keep track of, Dr. Drew.
DREW PINSKY, HLN ANCHOR: That`s exactly right, Jane. The manufacturers are staying one step ahead of the regulators by changing the molecule ever so slightly.
And Jane, you and I have shared the studio out here for a long time. I just walked up the street in Hollywood Boulevard and was able to walk into a smoke shop in which there are just dozens and dozens along Hollywood Boulevard, and I bought myself some designer drug. I bought myself some bath salts. I bought some spice. No problem, right over the counter.
They want to know if you`re 18. That is one thing they do want to know. But beyond that, I got my hand on some bath salts. And on the package is says, "Does not contain MDPV," methylenedioxypyrovalerone. That`s code for "does contain this. You`ve got the right stuff, guys."
And kids, young adults can walk right up, and as you`re seeing right there on the screen, hallucinosis, agitation, happens very quickly and really, as much as a mania, as one of your guests said, it causes them encephalopathy where the hallmarks are complete lack of insight, extreme violence and really wild, bizarre behavior.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I`ve got to say. Here`s one other case. A homeless man in Miami lunged at cops trying to bite them, and he threatened to eat them. Cops had to put this Brandon De Leon in restraints and a bite mask. This is out of a horror movie.
Dr. Drew, what is this with the biting and the human flesh eating that seems to be -- I`m not jumping to any conclusions -- but seems to be associated with a lot of these cases that are connected to bath salts?
PINSKY: Yea, the violence, the bloodiness and the -- what we can only call sort of an oral aggression.
I think I would caution, Jane, anyone against trying to make rational conclusions about irrational encephalopathic behavior. The brain, as many of your guests and callers have said, is merely discharging in ways that are completely unregulated and abnormal.
And as a result, you`re seeing these bizarre and you`re seeing right here in the footage alongside of me. That is not somebody connected to reality. That`s not someone whose brain is functioning in a way that is normal or even applies standards of logic or rationality.
It`s a brain that`s severely dysfunctional and the manifestations are hallucinosis, agitation, paranoia, violence, and as you saw here, there`s a lot of aggression around the mouth. So whenever you hear people getting involved in bloody kinds of altercations where there`s biting, you`ve got to think about bath salts.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, it kind of makes sense. With meth, you know that they pick at their face, and they grind their teeth. That`s why meth mouth. And they have certain characteristics.
This is also apparently, seemingly -- I`m not the doctor; you are, but it seems to be a characteristic of this bath salts, to be biting other fellow humans.
PINSKY: It does seem to be. And all of this stuff that really is again, the two really disturbing parts, aside from the fact that all of these behaviors are disturbing. But the thing that I guess is scariest is that these kinds of extreme phenomenon develop very quickly.
You`re hearing everybody say, the addiction is quick. The side effects are quick to develop. And then once they have developed, the individual who is sick has -- seems to have no insight. They don`t realize there`s a problem. You heard over and again. They say, "Well, my grandmother is possessed by the devil. That`s just a fact. I`ve got to get her. I`m going to go kill her because, well, she`s possessed by the devil." And no insight into, for instance, this gentleman you`re looking at now -- into the fact that he is in serious trouble.
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