Wanting to move fast because college spring breaks are rapidly approaching, Attorney General Pam Bondi moved unilaterally Wednesday to outlaw a previously-legal substance that Panhandle sheriffs warned was being used as a drug.
The substance, Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), is commonly sold as bath salts. But its effects are anything but common, Bondi said Wednesday in a hastily-arranged press conference to announce a 90-day emergency ban on the substance to allow lawmakers to look at a permanent prohibition.
“One of the side effects of this drug is it makes you think you see monsters,” Bondi told reporters. “It makes you think you can fly.”
Bondi said the drug is commonly marketed with names like Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave, Ocean Burst and Bolivian Bath. With lawmakers not set to begin the 2011 legislative session until March 8, Bondi said she had to act swiftly to stop those sales.
“They have Spring Break coming up in the Panhandle,” she said. “There are a lot of balconies out there.”
Bondi, in her first month as attorney general, said she was only recently made aware of the drug. She said she received a letter from Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen saying the situation was getting hard to control.
“Our experience in Bay County has been to the point of almost lethal,” McKeithen said Wednesday in Tallahassee. “We’ve had several incidents where officers are in contact with individuals who’ve ingested this substance. It’s creating superhuman strength that takes seven to eight officers to deal with these individuals that’s actually under the influence of it.”
McKeithen said that without Bondi’s emergency ban, there may have been too many cases of MPDV abuse to handle on the Northwest Florida beaches in the coming months.
“Our problem was it could be the perfect storm,” he said. “That was our biggest concern with our over 2,000 kids coming to Panama City (and) Bay County during spring break, being able to walk into these so-called head shop businesses and purchase this substance. We had to do something. We asked for help.”
“I frankly had a nightmare last night that somebody was going to overdose and we hadn’t done anything,” Bondi said.
Under the new ban, which Bondi said takes effect immediately, possession or distribution of the MPDV bath salts will be a schedule 1 felony, punishable by one to three years in prison.
“To put it in perspective, that’s right up there with cocaine and heroin,” Bondi said.
She noted that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had issued a similar emergency ban recently. Lawmakers in Mississippi and Kentucky are reported to be considering acting to outlaw the substance as well.
Several lawmakers, including Panhandle Reps. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City, and Marti Coley, R-Marianna, were in attendance for Bondi’s news conference. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. William Synder, R-Stuart, was there as well, on behalf of House leadership, as was Senate President Mike Haridopolos.
Haridopolos praised Bondi’s quick action, saying the MDPV bath salts were “simply up to no good.”
This is what leadership’s all about,” Haridopolos said.
He added that Bondi would have “the full support of our Senate” in making the ban permanent this spring.
By Keith Laing
The News Service of Florida
