Not to be left behind in any new drug hysteria, Alabama has jumped on the “let’s define everything as a drug” bandwagon and outlawed “fake” bath salts. As the drug war reaches the level of pure comedy, the public has large acquiesced to the continuous escalation of controls imposed on the public in the name of the drug war.
“This is fair warning to those who sell or possess this product. Get rid of it or go to jail,” [Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin] said.
The bath salts scare is just the latest in a perpetual sequence of ludicrous epidemic “threats to our children” that are now being invented almost monthly. It was only weeks ago when the caffeinated alcohol drink Four Loko was the subject of a fear mongering feeding frenzy that ultimately got it summarily banned by the FDA. Remember when it actually took a Constitutional amendment to ban something in “the land of the free”. Now all to takes is a warning letter from some self-serving federal appointee. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
So why is this an issue for the Sex Hysteria! blog? Well, what caught my attention in this latest installment of drug war idiocy is how Sex Toy Freedom Fighter Sherri Williams is treating the impending ban. Sherri Williams is owner of Pleasures, a chain of sex shops in Alabama, and her antics have become the topic of several postson Sex Hysteria! (here, here, and here). Sherri will comply with the law, but she’s a veteran in the war against Alabama government absurdity and it shows in her attitude:
The bath salts have been sold in many stores across the Valley including Pleasures in Huntsville but Tuesday morning, the store put up a sign saying “Last Day! Bath Salt Banned Buy Now!”
“Strange said he has heard stories from law enforcement officials in other states about teenagers jumping off balconies after taking the drugs, ‘because they thought they could fly.’”
Let’s see, the first time I heard that (about LSD in that case) was in one of those “drug scare” programs when I was in about 7th grade, which would be about 1978. And the myth was probably almost 20 years old old then.
Yeah, there are only so many panics available for use, so they have to keep recycling them. But, young people are taken in because, to them, these scares seem as if they are happening for the first time.
Haven’t we seen similar myths claimed as fact about alcohol as well?
Bath salts. Brr…
I’m beginning to think there is a Myth of the Month Club somewhere churning out these idiot panics.