They’re cheap, widely available, highly addictive — and legal. But what many users of synthetic drugs don’t realize is the violent, dark, even deadly path they can lead to.

At the MedWest-Haywood Behavioral Health Unit, physicians and social workers are seeing the worst of what these drugs can do.

“Patients we’ve seen on the unit affected by bath salts have had visual hallucinations such as seeing bugs and spiders crawling on the walls, auditory hallucinations of the devil telling them to hurt themselves and mood changes that result in manic behaviors creating the belief that they could do almost anything,” said Dr. David Wangerin-Lile, PA-C.

Just like with any drug, every person reacts to synthetic drugs differently. But there is one thing Molly Richardson, a licensed clinical social ...