Ban on Bath Salts?

In a Washington Post article dated July 21, 2011, Maryland health officials call for a ban on "bath salts" aka the pretty colored pieces of salt that you put in the bath tub to make it smell like roses or violets. According to the article these salts are considered drugs and have been inhaled, ingested, smoked or injected. Sounds to me like these people are having trouble finding or affording other street drugs so they are relying on their mother's bath salts that she bought from her local Bath and Body Works. In May, officials raided a town in Fredrick County where they found barrels of powder used to manufacture the "drugs" or the bath salts. According to the article, although they are called "bath salts," these so called drugs do not contain the ingredients of traditional bath salts. They even have street named such as "Ivory Wave" and "Red Dove." I would love to know what exactly these "bath salts" are because all I can think about are the scented, pastel colored granules of salt that you can put in your bath tub. I have never truly understood the purpose of bath salt, however it seems pretty ridiculous that something that is sold at your local drug store is now being ingested and smoked in order to get a high. According to the article users may develop cardiac and circulatory disturbances, agitation, delirium, etc. once they use this "drug." It seems to me that the government feels that since they can't seem to regulate the street drug trade, i.e. marijuana, cocaine, heroine, etc. they are attempting to remove products that could possibly be used as narcotics. Ironically, the article begins with "At least one death and 22 cases of poisoning have prompted Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to call for an emergency law to ban the sale on the synthetic drugs known as 'bath salts'." It seems a little ridiculous to me that there is an EMERGENCY ban when only one death and 22 cases of poisoning have been reported. But hey, maybe today was just a slow day on crime so they had to come up with some news story right?