Toxicology reports released last week by the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner found that there were no traces of bath salts in the body of Rudy Eugene, the "Miami Cannibal" who attacked 65-year-old Ronald Poppo under the MacArthur Causeway on May 26.
We are on the verge of a zombie apocalypse, and I couldn't be happier. For I, you see, am a zombie, or, as we prefer to be called by you brains on legs, Shuffling-Undead-American.
It's hard to say if the pop culture popularity has influenced similar copycat killers, or if the zombie craze simply has made us more sensitive to similar real-life stories. Either way, both the fictional tales and actual news items may speak to something going on in our collective imaginations.
The only context to last night's joke comes in the form of one dead man, a man left without a face and one woman whose life is now ruined. No point was made; no artistic boundary was pushed.
Mention Miami this week and the first thing people will talk about is the "zombie" attack. Once the Twitterverse finishes with the jokes, look into the lives of both men and it stops being funny and starts being sad.
Sales of another form of 'bath salts' are reaching new records -- and bringing grave health hazards. While news of their popularity (and risk) has circulated for some time, there is very disturbing information just out.
These are not problems we can simply legislate away. Our approach needs to be twofold: addressing substance abuse on both macro and micro levels.