(For more information on bath salts read “Doctor Tried Bath Salts and Liked It: In Defense of Bath Salts.” For an alternate theory of the Causeway Cannibal read “Did Bible Study and Anti-Drug Vow Cause Miami Cannibal Attack?”)

After a face eating the objective news media linked cannibalism with the drugs sold as bath salts on the flimsiest of evidence:

Rudy Eugene (5/26/12) – In the face-eating case, the media continues to link the Miami Causeway Cannibal to bath salts based on the Miami police union chief’s spurious speculation even though initial toxicology reports found no evidence of bath salts in his system.*

Brandon De Leon (6/2/12) – After being arrested for disorderly conduct a homeless Miami man tried to bite an officer and threatened to eat one. A toxicology test found that he had marijuana and Xanax in his system. He was also extremely intoxicated with a blood alcohol content over three times the legal limit for driving (.29). No bath salt chemicals were found by the blood test but news reports say it was “later discovered” that De Leon used the bath salt, Cloud 9.

Carl Jacquneaux (6/5/12) – A Louisiana man, Carl Jacquneaux, bit his neighbor’s face in a fight. The only evidence of a bath salts connection was the victim’s friend said that Jacquneaux used bath salts.

The idiocy of blaming bath salts for violent gore is obvious to the average person who has used these substances. A bath salt, mephedrone, has been one of the top club drugs in the UK for years and has never precipitated cannibalism. (4) Scientists have found that alcohol’s correlation with violence dwarfs that of all other drugs – including PCP, steroids, and stimulants like bath salts. (3) Compare the following acts of cannibalism involving alcohol with the bath salts’ incidents above:

Jeffrey Dahmer (6/78 – 7/91) – One of America’s most famous cannibals, Dahmer killed 17 victims over a 14-year period. He spoke of eating his victims with Dateline NBC in 1994, “It made me feel like they were a permanent part of me …. and it gave me a sexual satisfaction to do that.” (See 20-second clip here.) Dahmer was an alcoholic since high school. He was so drunk during the 1989 murder that launched his spree of savagery that after awaking next to the corpse he could not remember what had happened.

Maxim Golovatskikh and Yury Mozhnov (1/09) – These two Russian 20-year-old goths drowned 16-year-old Karina Barduchian in a St. Petersburg bathtub. They carved up her body, ate some of her, and served her meat with potatoes to an unaware woman the next day. The victim was in love with Golovatskikh, a minor pop star. In interrogation they said they did it because they were hungry and drunk.

Susan Mukuhi Mwarabu (5/11) – This sixth-grade teacher was drunk at a St. Paul, Minnesota diner. After licking a stranger’s face, she bit part of his ear off. When she was asked to leave the premises she picked the ear off the floor and put it back in her mouth on her way out.

Nagaraj Reddy (6/11) – This drunk Indian fought with his wife after a late dinner in Bangalore. She went to bed but was awoken by a sharp pain in her left ear. Her husband was biting it off. She told the police, “He chewed it in front of me. It was disgusting.” (5)

Tyree Lincoln Smith (12/11) – The Connecticut Cannibal murdered a homeless man by bashing his face and head with an ax. He took parts of the brain and an eyeball to his cousin’s grave at a local cemetery. There he ate the body parts and washed them down with a shot of alcohol. He told another cousin that, “he had gotten a rare steak at a restaurant in Florida and when he had tasted the blood it had given him a sexual sensation.” (1) He said the victim’s eyeball tasted like oyster.

Wang Ai (1/12) – This drunk Chinese father bit off two of his daughter’s fingers in China’s Guizhou province. His daughter, Leilei, was two-years old.

Russian Man (3/12) – A man whose name was not released was having a vodka party with friends. He stabbed one of them to death, sliced the meat off, cooked it, and ate it with the other guest. The next day he took the excess meat to a local market and sold it as pork. One of the three purchasers thought the meat tasted strange and took it to experts. The murderer later told police, “We got short of snacks to eat with our vodka.” (2)

Because people are familiar with alcohol’s typical users, not just psychos cherry-picked by the media, the alcohol incidents are properly viewed as extremely rare mental-health cases. Due to yellow journalism responsible bath salts users are invisible. Instead of banning bath salts for minors and objectively studying the chemicals, politicians have responded to the distorted media attention by declaring all adults who possess them criminals.

* Addendum (June 28, 2012) – The full toxicology report of Rudy Eugene released on June 27, 2012 reported that the only drug found in his body was marijuana. The common chemicals in drugs sold as bath salts were absent. LINK

Addendum (July 2, 2012) – On June 26, 2012, a bus driver identified as “Dong” drank heavily at lunch in Wenzhou, China. Whereas his drinking buddies merely passed out, Dong ran into traffic and blocked a woman’s car. He climbed onto the hood and began smashing her windshield. When she exited the vehicle to escape, Dong tackled her and began eating her face. LINK

Sources

1. Martin Barillas, “‘Connecticut Cannibal’ Held on $1 Million Bond,” EnergyPublisher.com, 1 Feb. 2012. LINK

2. Matt Blake, “Russian Man Kills and Eats Drinking Partner ….,” DailyMail.co.uk, 26 Mar. 2012. LINK

3. Martin Brecher, et al., “Phencyclidine and Violence,” J. Clin. Psychopharmacol., Dec. 1988.

4. Jamie Doward, “Mephedrone More Popular Since Being Banned,” Guardian.co.uk, 10 Mar. 2012. LINK

5. “Husband Bites Wife’s Ear in Drunken Rage,” Siasat.com, 4 July 2011. LINK

6. “Politics of Facebook,” New Scientist, 24 Apr. 2010.