Toronto police say a package labeled bath salts was seized during a massive drug bust over the weekend, with the potential for it to be the first reported case involving the dangerous new street drug in the city.
Toronto’s Organized Crime Enforcement Gun and Gang Task Force executed three search warrants on Sunday, seizing various drugs worth an estimated $1.5 million. Police also seized $175,000 is cash and an assortment of firearms.
Among the seized drugs was one package marked “bath salts,” which weighed about 15 kilograms, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair confirmed on Monday.
“This is of significant concern to us,” Blair said. “We have, not yet, seen this drug widely used – although it has shown up in some tests at Health Canada in other drugs being sold as ecstasy – but it is a dangerous drug. It’s a drug that can cause hallucinations. It can cause very violent and unpredictable reactions in persons who are abusing this drug.”
Police spokesperson Const. Tony Vella said they are still waiting for conclusive test results to come back before they can say for certain that the drug seized was bath salts.
If the substance turns out to be bath salts, it will be the first arrest in Toronto related to the new drug since it began making headlines in connection to a gruesome May attack in Miami, in which one man chewed the flesh off another man’s face.
Police said the seizures that netted the potential bath salts came from an apartment on Yorkville Avenue, a home on Huron Street and a vehicle owned by the accused.
Investigators seized a total of 11 firearms, including seven handguns, an AK-47, a sawed-off shotgun and a rifle.
Also seized was $1.5 million in drugs including ecstasy, cocaine, heroine, crystal meth and marijuana.
Police said the crystal meth alone had a street value of more than $800,000.
Bennett Vuong, 27, of Toronto, is charged with a total of 82 drug- and firearm-related charges.
The potential bath salts bust comes on the same weekend that a man, who police believe may have been high on bath salts, assaulted two police officers in the lobby of an apartment building on Lake Shore Boulevard West.
Police attempted to arrest the man Sunday after he wouldn’t leave the building lobby. Police said he then began to fight with the officers as he refused arrest.
Two officers were injured during the melee and had to be taken to hospital with serious injuries.
A 24-year-old man has been charged in connection to that event.
Bath salts are also known as MDPV, or methylenedioxypyrovalerone, a synthetic amphetamine that delivers a powerful high. It is also known to cause dangerous side effects, such as violent hallucinations, fear and can lead to a feeling of paranoia.
The drug has earned the nickname "bath salts" because the finished product resembles the scented bath products found in many Canadian homes.
The federal government moved to ban bath salts earlier this month – placing it under the same regulations as cocaine and heroin. It is already banned in many parts of the U.S.
News of the raid comes the same day as police in Calgary said that they may have found the first incident of bath salts use in that city after a family called 911 when their 21-year-old son was behaving erratically.
