More Snow for Oklahoma City; Controlling 'Bath Salts'
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It is 2:00 out East, where we are, and it's 11:00 out West. And take a live look from Little Rock, Arkansas, 1:00 there in the Central Time zone. And boy, oh, boy, look how gray and hazy it is. You know, they don't need to bother declaring a state of emergency in parts of the country, especially in Oklahoma. The ones from last week's storm, still in effect, really. This latest winter blast is small by comparison, but still prompting watches, warnings and advisories from Texas to West Virginia. And once again, parts of Oklahoma had double-digit snowfall, while temperatures are barely out of single digits. Dallas- Fort Worth picked up one to three inches, but at least the Super Bowl is over. Remember the problems they had last week? CNN's Ed Lavandera is back in his big coat and back in Oklahoma City. Ed, is it feeling like Groundhog Hay?</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely is, Don. You know, you're showing those pictures from Little Rock, and this is what it looks like on the back side of this storm. The worst of the snowfall has passed through Oklahoma, and we're starting to see the sun come out. And that means the cleanup process begins here as well, or at least trying to clear the roadways that have been so hard hit here over the last 12 hours or so. Really, the northern part of Oklahoma is the area that was hardest hit, but it still has caused and wreaked havoc across the state. Schools shut down. Businesses shut down. Airports are just now kind of starting to come back on line. The airport here in Oklahoma City is trying to get flights out here more and more over the course of the next few hours. And the airports in Dallas starting to reopen as well. So, really, the best news of all, Don, is that the temperatures are starting to slowly creep back up, at least into temperatures that are still below freezing, but not so devastatingly cold, it just makes you so miserable. The wind-chills this morning, Don, out here dipping down to about minus 15 degrees below zero.</s>LEMON: OK. And records will be set possibly. There's a strong possibility?</s>LAVANDERA: Oh, yes. The snowfalls that have fallen here over the course -- if you take in last week and other snowfalls that have happened here, they've gotten more than twice the amount of snow that Oklahoma is used to seeing on average during the winter season. So this has been a devastating few blows for a couple of weeks. And if you look back down these streets, you still see piles of snow. That's the remnants from last week's snowstorm. It still hadn't completely melted away.</s>LEMON: Ed Lavandera. OK, Ed. Stay warm. Be careful. We appreciate it. And CNN's meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is watching this storm sweep across the South. And she'll show us where it's headed, what it's doing, what it's expected to do, in just minutes here on CNN. Now I want to talk about the backlash over bath salts. And the first thing that you need to know, really, they're not actually bath salts. They're similar to hard drugs, though entirely legal in most places and relatively cheap. When snorted or smoked, they can cause a violent, almost psychotic high. And that's why you see the police in Louisiana right there taking them off store shelves. CNN's Alina Cho has more on this right now from New York -- Alina.</s>ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Don. The name sounds innocent enough, "bath salts." But don't let the name deceive you. Drug experts say they're just a synthetic version of cocaine or ecstasy. And experts say their effects can be as powerful as using those drugs -- psychotic episodes, hallucinations, even suicidal thoughts. And in most states you can buy these so-called "bath salts" legally. Now, Florida, Louisiana and North Dakota, we should note, have taken action. They've actually banned the drugs. And Congress is now hoping to do the same. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York recently proposed a bill that would put these bath salts on a list of federally-controlled substances.</s>SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: The so-called "bath salts" are nothing more than deadly narcotics, and they're being sold to cheaply to all comers, no questions asked, at store counters around the country.</s>CHO: The drugs are available in convenience stores, smoke shops and online. And again, perfectly legal in most states. They come in Kool-Aid-type packets with names like "Red Dawn" and "Purple Wave," and they typically sell for about $20 to $80 a packet, relatively cheap. And that makes them particularly appealing to teenagers. The salts can then be smoked, snorted or ingested for a quick high. The White House drug czar recently put out a warning about these bath salts. And poison control centers say they've seen a sharp rise in calls about the drugs. More than 250 calls, Don, so far this year -- Don.</s>LEMON: Alina, thank you very much for that. Want to check some of the other big stories of the day right now. A school district in southwest Washington, get this, is cracking down on student sexting. The Kelso School District voted unanimously this week to ban all explicit messages sent from students' phones on school property. That includes any sexual pictures, text messages and e-mails students send. So, how will school officials know? All right, listen. Under the new code, school administrators will be allowed to confiscate and search students' personal cell phones. If a student is caught sexting, parents and police are notified. A second or third offense, and that's a long-term expense and even expulsion. The district's ban on sexting goes into effect this fall. Have BlackBerrys and iPhones become more popular than personal computers? It sure looks that way. The research firm IDC is reporting this, that smartphones outsold personal computers in the last few months for the first time. Worldwide, smartphone makers shipped more than 100 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2010. That's an 87 percent increase from the year before. Compare that to the 92 million PCs that were shipped that same period. More than 300 million smartphones were shipped last year. We go now to Egypt, day 16 of the conflict, and no sign of the movement losing any steam. In fact, the crowds just keep getting bigger. Swarms of defiant protesters taking over Tahrir Square again today. Some of them broke away to block Egypt's parliament and prime ministry building. They say they won't go away until President Hosni Mubarak does. Many of those protesters were galvanized yesterday when Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim addressed them in Tahrir Square after being jailed for 12 days. An unexpected defeat for GOP leaders when they failed to pass an extension of three key provisions of the Patriot Act. The House voted 277-148 in favor of the bill. That was short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass it. Twenty-six Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill, including new lawmakers backed by the Tea Party. House Republicans say they'll bring the bill up again under rules requiring just a simple majority. Ever heard of the 99ers? The 99ers? More money may be headed their way. But you still wouldn't want to be one of them. We'll explain. Today's "Taking the Lead," next.