The Suffolk County Legislature banned the sale of chemicals found in some bath salts on Tuesday, resulting in a product it determined was "powdered synthetic cocaine" and has been ingested as a hallucinogen.
Sale of such bath salts has already been banned in Louisiana, North Dakota, and Florida, as well as other local municipalities, according to the county, and several others are considering the ban.
While the synthetic chemicals are most commonly found in and marketed as bath salts, they can also be found in other products that "manufacturers make with a wink of an eye," said the sponsor of the bill that calls for the ban.
"We're not banning bath salts at all, per se," said Jon Cooper, D-Huntington. "We are banning the chemical compounds, that's the best way to describe it. Because the manufacturer will call it a bath salt, or pond scum remover, or deodorizer. But what it is, is a drug."
The text of the resolution states that active synthetic ingredients in bath salts include methylone, mephedrone, and MDPV, among others, some of which bear similarities to ingredients extracted from the khat plant, an African plant with a similar stimulant effect as cocaine.
Cooper said that as a legislator eight years ago, he penned the nation's first bill to ban ephedra. Eight months later, he said, it was banned on the federal level.
"I'm hoping to see something similar to that," he said. "Because these chemicals are synthetically produced and relatively new, they have fallen under the radar screen."
Bath salts not including the harmful chemicals are exempt from the ban.
The measure passed by a unanimous 18-0 vote.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy has not yet signed the bill into law.
Parents need to be engaged 24/7.
Numerous everyday items can be used incorrectly and harm people. People slip and fall on stairs and in bathtubs and can be seriously injured. I do not propose banning staircases or bathtubs. The political classes in our state and at the local level need to wake up. How about jobs for our young people so they do something useful and made to feel they would have a future so they are not inclined to do stupid things.
This dangerous and foolish behavior must be corrected by family and community. As it says in the Holy Bible: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." [Proverbs 22:6 - KJV]. Our government needs too get out of the way and let parents and schools discipline children.
If it is not school board policy to do this, then that would be a new law I would support, not just the Suffolk Legislature, but the State Legislature should pass a law requiring such testing. By the way, it should cost little or nothing to the taxpayers for this to be done, since part of the law can require that the new or current employee pay for the testing. The Stalinist unions will scream and whine about privacy. Well, I say nonsense, nobody has a privacy right to break the law. It is the drug culture that needs to be harassed and smashed by society and government, not private enterprise.
I hear you to an extent, surly it is a knee jerk reaction to agree with you. However why should I or any other tax payer be responsible to pay for a school employee to be drug tested to help insure my child is getting the best possible care that can be offered? If you want to stay employed pay $20 and pee in the cup. It is not like they are asking for daily drug tests that you have to pay for. If you don't like it find another job, my taxes are high enough I don't need to carry the cost of proving school employees are not buying and using illegal drugs.
We have been lied to over and over again about drugs for generations so it is no wonder that kids don't believe the lies. Banning more things that could be dangerous is an effort in futility akin to banning cars and bathtubs. Anyway we need to stop lying to kids and treating them like they are stupid. Kids should be trained to stay away from drugs the same way that they are trained to be afraid of fire and electricity. Perhaps it's the parents that need more training. As Brad points out heroin is cheap and readily available so we know that those laws are a dismal failure, the same as the marijuana laws. The problem is not with kids taking the drugs but the reason that they WANT them. Where is the money for those programs?? The politicians have so many more important issues to deal with but leave them lying forgotten on the table while they are banning bath salts to keep their constituents believing that they are doing something useful to earn their bloated salaries.