Police: Man high on bath-salt drug tried to kill another

Police said that Abdulla Smith, 32, of the 1000 block of Oak Stone Drive, carried a handgun when he detained Gage Garrick Kalani Adams. Smith threatened to kill Adams and struck him with the gun, police said.

Adams suffered superficial injuries but was not shot in the incident, police said.

Smith was high on a stimulant contained in a bath salt, police said.

Two synthetic stimulants – methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and mephedrone – are sold as bath salts under such brand names as Serenity, Cloud 9 and Ivory Wave. Health officials say more and more people are snorting, smoking or injecting the stimulants for a cocaine-like high that can produce hallucinations.

The Carolinas Poison Center has recorded 57 cases of MDPV abuse in North Carolina since October, but no known fatalities. Autopsies showed that mephedrone was a contributing factor in the deaths of two young men found on a fire escape in Raleigh last fall.

A Willow Spring woman, who was arrested after her toddler tested positive for cocaine last week, was high on a bath-salt drug and hallucinating, an arrest warrant states.

Two bills before the General Assembly would criminalize the manufacture, sale and use of MDPV and mephedrone.

Smith faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, second-degree kidnapping and communicating threats. He was placed in the Cumberland County jail under a $100,000 bond.

He has been convicted as a habitual felon and spent more than 8 years of the past 15 in prison, according to state Department of Correction records. He has also been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and numerous counts of breaking-and-entering and larceny.