A crackdown on bath salts has resulted in the arrest of a former owner of a head shop in Durango who is accused of selling the designer drug.
Mohammed Assi, who until recently worked at the Downtown Smoke Shop, 1101 Main Ave., was arrested Friday by the Southwest Drug Task Force on suspicion of distribution of a controlled substance, a felony. He is free on $25,000 bail.
Assi, 24, was standing behind the counter Tuesday at the store but said he no longer works there. He declined to comment for this story. A man at the store who identified himself as Assis father said the store does not sell bath salts or any illegal substances.
The shop is owned by Ahmad J. Assi, according to city records.
Assis Durango defense lawyer, Chris Trimble, said the claims are baseless and will be cleared up eventually.
He asserts his innocence, Trimble said.
Bath salts first appeared in Durango about a year ago.
The bath salts sold at head shops and over the Internet are not intended for bathtubs; rather, they are a mixture of synthetic chemicals that are snorted, smoked or injected intravenously. They create a quick and intense high that has been compared to methamphetamine.
Street names for the drug include red rocket and white devil. The drug also can be packaged and sold under the guise of plant fertilizer.
The task force executed a search warrant a couple of months ago at Wild Side Gifts on north Main Avenue. No arrests have been made.
For months, manufacturers were able to sell bath salts legally by changing the drugs formula by one molecule. But a new ban on analogs of the chemical compounds used to produce the high cathinone and methcathinone made it illegal to mimic the compounds for the purpose of human consumption, Downs said.
By passing this analog statute, it basically is saying that even if you change the chemical compound of it ... and it still has a similar chemical structure or mimics the chemical structure of a controlled substance, it is illegal, he said.
Bath-salt distributors have tried to sidestep the law by printing not for human consumption on the labels. But if distributors know the substance is being used for human consumption, they are still breaking the law, Downs said.
It is going underground a little bit where people are still making it and selling it just like theyre selling other drugs, Downs said.
The Durango Police Department in September arrested a woman who was in possession of a syringe containing what appeared to be methamphetamine. The woman insisted the contents in the syringe were bath salts, not meth.
The woman told police she was injecting bath salts in lieu of methamphetamine, which she was addicted to, according to an arrest affidavit.
The woman told police she purchased bath salts from the Downtown Smoke Shop and Wild Side Gifts.
On Sept. 28, an undercover agent with the Southwest Drug Task Force visited the Downtown Smoke Shop and asked to purchase $100 worth of bath salts. The agent wore a wire capable of recording and transmitting sound.
According to the arrest report, Assi produced a box from behind the counter and offered to sell each package for $30 or four packages for $100. Assi rang up the purchase and put the money into the cash register, according to the arrest report.
The agent asked Assi if he could smoke the bath salts. Assi didnt say anything but placed his index finger to his nose as if to suggest they should be ingested through the nose, according to the affidavit.
Sniff it? the agent asked.
Assi nodded his head in the affirmative, according to the affidavit.
Based on the gesture, the agent determined Assi knew the bath salts were being used for human consumption, according to the affidavit.
The drug came in a small vial with a screw-on lid. The individual packages were labeled White Devil and read not for human consumption.
The contents tested positive for analogs of methcathinone, a Schedule I controlled substance, according to the arrest report filed last week in 6th Judicial District Court.
Formal charges in the bath salts case are expected to be filed against Assi Jan. 6 in District Court in La Plata County.