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No 'Bath Salts' Drug Found In System Of Face-Eating Attacker

An undated booking mug made available by the Miami-Dade Police Dept., showing Rudy Eugene.
AP
An undated booking mug made available by the Miami-Dade Police Dept., showing Rudy Eugene.

Back in May, we told you that Miami Police suspected that a man who was shot dead while he bit off another man's face was high on "bath salts."

A Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's report released today, however, disproves that theory. According to the AP, the only drug found in Rudy Eugene's system was marijuana.

"The laboratory tested for but did not detect any other street drugs, alcohol or prescription drugs, or any adulterants found in street drugs in Eugene, the 31-year-old who friends said was religious and read both the Bible and Quran," the AP reports.

The Miami Herald reports that the ME's office asked for extra help from an independent forensic toxicology lab, "which has confirmed the absence of 'bath salts,' synthetic marijuana and LSD."

Last year, NPR's Greg Allen reported that authorities across the country had become increasingly concerned about bath salts, "a drug that produces a meth-like high and sometimes violent behavior in users."

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.