OTTAWA

It has nothing to do with a soothing soak in the tub.

Bath salts are the disturbing new designer drug surfacing in the Ottawa area, police say.

Police seized $200,000 of the hallucinogenic drug from a home near Arnprior last week, while officers in another small Ontario town were shocked when they dealt with people high on the drug for the first time this year.

“It’s unbelievable how big this problem could become,” said OPP drug enforcement Det. Sgt. Paul Henry.

“What’s even more scary is young people in the area are probably exposed to this stuff and willing to consume it because it can be legal.”

Part of the problem, say police, is that the drug makeup is so new Health Canada has yet to classify some of the chemicals that can be used to make bath salts -- such as methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV ) -- as controlled substances. And they don’t show up on drug tests.

Several states have moved to ban the synthetic powder, where U.S. reports describe horror stories of users stabbing themselves and others, jumping from windows or arming themselves with shotguns to ward off imaginary attackers.

“The problem is there seem to be fatalities with first-time users,” said Ottawa Hospital toxicologist Dr. Andrew Gee, who has yet to see a specific case.

“It’s not your beginner drug, but it’s being touted as that.”

Sold under such names as “Ivory Wave” or “Vanilla Sky,” bath salts are cheap and can be legally ordered online. They can be smoked, snorted or injected, with its effects similar to methampetamines and cocaine.

Ottawa police are also monitoring the substance.

“It’s just a matter of time,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Laviolette, of the Ottawa Police drug unit. “We expect to see it, like every other municipality.”

In the Arnprior raid, two kilograms of suspected bath salts were confiscated after cops raided a date-rape drug lab, the first seizure of its kind in the region.

In Owen Sound, hospital staff alerted police when several men with extreme paranoia and hallucinations showed up in one day in late January.

Bath salts, which police later seized in separate busts, was the suspected culprit.

“I’d never seen anything like this,” said Owen Sound Det. Sgt. Mark Kielb. “We’re concerned.”

Health Canada officials test suspected drugs seized by police but are not aware of widespread marketing or use of bath salts.