LEWISTON — Area law enforcement agencies say the use of “bath salts” — synthetic hallucinogens recently outlawed in Maine — is not at the “epidemic” level Bangor and some coastal communities are experiencing.

Gov. Paul LePage and Commissioner of Public Saftey John Morris released a joint statement Monday, warning the public about the dangers of the drugs. The state has seen an “alarming increase in usage this year” despite emergency legislation passed in July that banned the sale and possession of the drugs, according to the news release.

But Lewiston and Auburn police have responded to only sporadic incidences involving bath salt users over the last year, said Matt Cashman, the supervisory special agent at the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency’s Lewiston office. A spokesman for Central Maine Medical Center said the hospital has had only one case in which a bath salt user was treated in the emergency room.

Auburn has had a single major incident, when a man who had overdosed on bath salts in January reported a home invasion and possible hostage situation to police, causing a section of Court Street to be closed for several hours, Deputy Chief Jason Moen said.

Lewiston has had no such incidents thus far, Lt. Mark Cornelio said.

While there’s nothing to explain why the trend hasn’t hit Lewiston-Auburn as hard, the drugs are new enough that their use may be unreported, Cashman said. He also said that local police forces have done a good job of ensuring that local head shops that might have sold the drugs before the new law went into effect took them off their shelves.

“Both Lewiston and Auburn have been very proactive,” Cashman said.

Meanwhile, Bangor police Chief Ron Gastia has said his department is facing an epidemic — dealing with at least one, and sometimes six or seven, calls a day to deal with users of the dangerous drugs. Bath salts can cause high blood pressure, anxiety, seizures, hallucinations, paranoia, suicidal depression, among other side-effects when ingested.

The drugs, which are packaged without instructions for ingestion under names such as “Monkey Dust,” “Vanilla Sky,” and “Whack,” are still available in many states and on the Internet. Some have made their way to Maine, with Bangor and coastal communities from Rockport to Houlton hardest hit, Cashman said.

On Saturday, a woman arrested in Bangor for theft of services was found ingesting bath salts she had smuggled into the Penobscot County Jail. Bangor police have responded to several cases in the last few months in which people under the influence of bath salts have been armed, aggressive or fled from police.

“The common thread is paranoia and delusions,” Cashman said. Bath salt users pose a threat to law enforcement agents and others because they are highly unpredictable, he said. “They are highly agitated when they talk to police.”

“Somebody that you trust day in and day out, you can’t trust on this stuff,” he said.

Bath salts are synthetically made, and have little to do with traditional bath salts.

“It’s like making ecstasy,” Cashman said. “They’re not to be used in baths.” Labeling them as bath salts, and packaging them with labels that warn “not for human consumption,” is a way for manufacturers to skirt federal regulations, he said.