SubstanceAbuseDivision

BUNA (UPDATE) - It's a fatal addiction striking from coast to coast, in America's heartland and in Southeast Texas. The addiction is affecting a staggering number of people across the nation, including a family in Southeast Texas that says a husband and father lost his job and his life because of his addiction to bath salts and K-2.

K-2 is synthetic marijuana. Bath salts, not the type sold for decades at markets, but a new type sold in small packages at convenience stores. It mimics the effects of cocaine. They can cause hallucinations lasting days, weeks, and can kill.

Richard Kerkau of Buna shot himself on March 28 at the family's home in Buna. His family says he was smoking K-2 and snorting bath salts.

The Kerkau family describe themselves as tight knit, often enjoying barbecues together. But March 28 changed their lives forever.

"He went into the front room and I noticed he had his rifle with him," said Kerkau's wife, Amber. "He had told me he just couldn't take anything anymore. He told his children to go to their room and he took his own life." 

His mother, Rebecca, added, "I talked to him 20 minutes before. He seemed fine."

Richard's parents and his wife started recognizing strange behavior in him after he began smoking K-2 and snorting bath salts.

"He was hallucinating a little,"  He was saying odd things that didn't make sense. It wasn't him," said Amber.

"Paranoid about everything," added his father, Richard.

The Kerkaus say they watched Richard change, deteriorate, and within weeks they didn't even recognize the person he had become.

"Very fast," said Amber. "He became someone else someone different very fast. Within two weeks he was not the same."

Richard says his son "lost so much weight. Stout man, withered to nothing that quick."

That quick, dramatic change is a story playing out every day, week and month across the nation.

Here are some numbers that tell the story: The American Association of Poison Control says in just the first four months of this year, it's received more than 1,700 calls about bath salts. That's up from only 302 calls last year.

Poison Control had more than 2,800 calls in 2010 about K-2, and already has had more than 1,600 hundred calls in 2011.

"It's not meant for humans. It will kill you," said Amber.

Family members of Kerkau say it killed him. Killed a man who never had a drug problem in the past, a man who had been a dedicated Marine, the type of person you'd never expect would see his life spiral downward and fall apart.

"It will take the person you love and it will destroy them," said Amber. "It makes them someone they're not. I had a perfectly good husband and father and it turned him into somebody I no longer have."

A life cut short. Kids that will never grow up with a father. A wife who will never again see her husband. Parents that had to bury their own child.

"We love him very much. We miss him so badly. Want him back. We just want him back," said Richard.

While they long for the impossible, they fight to make sure Richard Kerkau's life had meaning for themselves and others.

"Watch your children. Watch them closely. If they start acting funny something is going on. I will continue talking about it until something is done," said Richard's mom.

Richard Kerkau's autopsy is pending.

K-2 and bath salts are gaining national attention. Nationally known Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote an article about them in this month's TIME Magazine. The Texas legislature recently passed a bill banning K-2 and substances like it. Many cities, including Jasper, Kirbyville, and Port Arthur, have banned the sale and consumption of K-2.

A bill to outlaw bath salts is moving through the legislature and local law enforcement agencies are hoping it will pass in this session. Nederland is the first city in Southeast Texas, to our knowledge, that has approved a law banning bath salts. It did so this week.

SOUTHEAST TEXAS - It's a fatal addiction that's affecting a staggering number of people across the nation, including a family in Southeast Texas that says its loved one lost his job and his ultimately his life because of his addiction to bath salts and K2.

Bath salts are sold at many convenience stores in small packets or containers of white powder. They aren't the bath salts sold for decades in grocery stores, but the type that mimic the effects of cocaine. People report hallucinations that last days and even weeks.

A number of communities and legislatures are working to ban bath salts.

K2 is synthetic marijuana. The Texas legislature has voted to ban K2.

Reported by Lindsey Kovacevich