Bath salts have been a hot topic of discussion this summer, ever since a gruesome and horrifying attack on the side of a Miami causeway attributed to the drug left one man dead and one gravely injured, missing more than 70% of his face.

Bath salts were immediately cited by police as the cause when Rudy Eugene attacked homeless man Ronald Poppo, and the fact that he was shot once by police without stopping before he continued to chew upon the other man’s face led many to speculate that a substance like bath salts drove Eugene’s bizarre behavior on the night he was killed.

(Also, many jokes about a zombie apocalypse followed.)

In recent weeks, bath salts keep popping up in the news as a factor in similar, yet less serious, attacks. Reports of all kinds of flesh-eating behavior have abounded, and the public is well and truly frightened of this new, synthetic drug that has yet to be banned.

But, we learned today, the man responsible for the face-eating attack in Miami was not on bath salts. Which is kind of interesting, as this whole story was dripping with the hallmarks of a moral panic from the outset.

CBS quotes Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Hyma, as well as autopsy reports on Eugene:

“Hyma’s office specifically ruled out Bath Salts, a class of synthetic drugs that have been known to cause bizarre behavior and overheating of people who use them, two things that made some believe Eugene’s cannibalistic behavior was to blame on the drugs.

“’The department has also sought the assistance of an outside forensic toxicology reference laboratory, which has confirmed the absence of “bath salts,” synthetic marijuana and LSD,’ the report said.”

Why police initially suspected bath salts in Eugene’s bizarre face-eating rampage remains to be seen.

Bath Salts NOT a Factor in Miami Face Eating Incident is a post from: The Inquisitr

The bath salts media brouhaha seems to have reached a fever pitch, with horror stories of users of synthetic drugs violently tearing into, attacking and eating other living things an ostensible daily occurrence.

The bath salts panic really kicked into full swing with the Miami face eating incident, but since then, it seems bath salts and similar substances are in the news daily due to what appears to be a sharp upswing in synthetic drug-related attacks — though whether use of the drugs is more prolific or it’s just a media interest in the stories remains to be seen.

After Rudy Eugene proceeded eating a man’s face in Florida until police were forced to shoot him dead, several similar incidents seemed to pop up. There was the woman upstate in New York who tried to bite a police officer’s face. The guy in Florida who tore off a chunk of someone’s arm.

And another face eating attack in Louisiana, as well as the guy that ate his roommate. It seems wherever bath salts go, zombie-like, flesh chewing behavior follows.

But bath salts aren’t the only unregulated and unpredictable drug legally for sale in the US, and now there is a report out of Texas that a man using a bath salts-like form of synthetic marijuana known as K2 killed the family dog with his bare hands and started to eat it.

Waco Police Sargent W. Swanton explains that during a “bad trip,” 22-year-old Michael Terron Daniel attacked several family members before turning to the family dog, who did not survive the attack:

“The man then took a medium-sized black dog onto the front porch of the home where he beat and strangled the animal and then ‘began to bite into the dog, ripping pieces of flesh away,’ Swanton said.

“The dog died at the scene.”

Daniel was arrested and charged with cruelty to a non-livestock animal.

Man on Bath Salts-Like Drug Kills and Eats Family Dog is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Palmetto, Florida man stormed (naked, by the way) into his his girlfriend’s house and bit a chunk of flesh out of a man’s arm, the latest in a string of strange, violent attacks. Dare I say, zombie attacks.

The so-called “Summer of Zombies” continues with the story of Charles Baker, a 26-year-old west Florida man who visited his girlfriend’s home on Wednesday night. He was supposed to be visiting his kids, but he was completely blown out of his mind on drugs and decided it would be a good idea to strip naked and bite a chunk of flesh out of a visiting man’s bicep. According to the Bradenton Herald, this all took place at about 10:15 p.m.

According to the authorities, Baker burst into his girlfriend’s apartment after she opened the door slightly and started screaming, swearing, a babbling. Jeffery Blake, 48, attempted to restrain him, but got a big chunk of man taken out of his arm. Despite being munched on pretty badly, Blake wrestled Baker to the ground and restrained him until police arrived.

When the police did arrive, Blake released Baker, who stood up but was unresponsive to the orders of the deputies. The naked Baker faces authorities, clenched his fists, tensed up, screamed, and looked as though he was going to rush the authorities, says the Daily Mail. At this point, the deputies tasered him. Twice. Then they arrested him.

The authorities said that Baker was under the influence of an unknown drug.

Slow down, though. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta recently went out of its way to announce that there is no zombie apocalypse. Yeah, the announcement was a bit tongue in cheek, but with all of the strange attacks going on lately, someone had to say something.

Still, one wonders…

Yet. Another. Zombie Attack. Naked Floridian Bites Chunk Out Of Man’s Arm is a post from: The Inquisitr