Oh, this explains why you sometimes want to simultaneously kiss and eat your friends …

It seems like only yesterday the headlines about a bath salt-induced zombie apocalypse were commonplace on the evening news. Bizarre stories about some resident of Florida unwittingly eating the face off of another human seemed to have just become part of the elaborate modern Americana tapestry. Just when we thought this problem was something only junkies and residents of the Sunshine State had to deal with, out comes a study finding large quantities of bath salts in the nation's beloved molly. 

A study undertaken at NYU determined that 40 percent of individuals who were under the impression they were taking only molly, had unsuspectingly taken some pretty sketchy ingredients with it, specifically synthetic cathinones, the main active ingredients in your run-of-the-mill bath salts. Dealers use cathinones because it’s just a cheaper, easier way to mimic the effects of molly.

But … we did say “mimic”? Anyone who’s taken molly knows that sometimes it makes you feel great, and sometimes it makes you feel great in the sense that pulling out your own hair and crying because TVs exist feels great. One of these is MDMA, one of these is MDMA cut with bath salts.

The researchers used hair samples from 48 subjects for testing. Participants were asked if they had used molly (ecstasy, MDMA, etc.) and also whether or not they had “knowingly used any of 35 listed ‘bath salts’ or other novel drugs.”

The results were a little disconcerting to say the least. Half of the samples tested positive for the MDMA individuals assumed they were taking; however the other half tested positive for bath salts and/or other similar drugs like the notorious Flakka.

“Among those who reported no use of 'bath salts' or unknown powders or pills, four out of ten tested positive for 'bath salts' and/or other novel drugs,” notes Dr. Joseph J. Palamar. “One sample also tested positive for alpha-PVP — the strong stimulant known as 'Flakka' that has made headlines in the last year. A lot of people laughed when they gave us their hair saying things like, ‘I don’t use bath salts; I’m not a zombie who eats people’s faces.’ Yet our findings suggest many of these people have been using bath salts without realizing it.”

There are plenty of test kits on the market for this very reason. Simply put, a $25 investment is a small price to pay when it comes to actually knowing what’s inside of that seemingly innocuous little pill. Things could get messy fast: one minute we’re on the dance floor sweating it out to Darude, the next we’re somehow knee-deep in an “all you can eat” face buffet.