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ESCANABA -- Just months after the Marquette County and Western U.P. Health Departments issued emergency orders to stop the sale of products marketed as bath salts, Delta and Menominee Counties are now doing the same.  The so-called "salts" are a toxic product that a growing number of people in Delta County are using to get high.

This emergency order to yank the product off store shelves comes from of a rash of emergency reactions and overdoses spreading across Delta and Menominee Counties.  The bath salts are a powerful meth-like stimulant--a drug sold right in local shops--but public health wants to nip the growing epidemic in the bud by shutting down local sales.

Locally the substance is known as "white rush," also ivory wave, m-cat, meow-meow and bounce.  It's disguised as a traditional bath salt, but it's a powerful drug, one that's spread across the U.P. like wild fire, recently catching flame in Delta and Menominee County jails.  Many symptomatic individuals picked up by the sheriff have been brought to the emergency room for treatment.

"What we see is hallucinations, delusional people, high blood pressures and high heart rates, to the point where it's an emergency," said Delta County Sheriff Gary Ballweg.

In the last month, the Delta County Sheriff's Department says they've transported about five inmates a week to the emergency room due to bath salt ingestion.

The effects are dangerous, and the appeal is its cheap price.  Before public safety banned its sale last week, one Escanaba shop marked it at $37 a pack.  The salts are also illegal.

"It happens frequently where companies will put out a product that's chemically close to something that's illegal and may have some of the same effects, but it's different enough that it skirts the law, the way it's currently written," said Delta and Menominee County Public Health administrator, Barb Chenier.

Emphasis on currently; legislation has recently surfaced in Lansing to ban the powdery product.

"There is a law that's been introduced in Michigan Senate to make it illegal, and I think that will happen," Chenier said.

In the meantime, public health hopes their emergency order pulling it from store shelves will cut usage.  Public health says local shops have complied with the order, but the battle on U.P. streets is still imminent as it is for so many controlled substances.