Not all drugs are created equal. Unlike, say, meth, bath salts transcend class. They most often establish a beachhead in college towns where head shops tend to cluster. To generalize, there are two types of users: college-age kids who want to get high without engaging in criminal activity and just plain drug addicts looking for a hassle-free fix.

—Bath salts are the equal-opportunity life-ruiner, as (fabulously) reported by Natasha Vargas-Cooper for Spin. This is a terrifying story, and we almost didn’t get to read it. From Natasha’s blog: “I’ve been begging magazines to let me write about bath salts for over a year and Spin, god help them, were the only ones to bite. This is the first non-music journalism the mag has done in close to a decade. Steve Kandell, the editor, stuck his pallid neck far out so I could do this piece.”