LEWISTON — To help stem the use of dangerous bath salts and respond to emergencies better, a training forum for professionals in health care, first responders, schools, colleges and community agencies will be held Friday, Jan. 27, at Central Maine Medical Center.

Participants will discuss some of the medical, legal and mental health issues around the use of bath salts. The goal is to gain knowledge about evaluating an individual who may have used bath salts, and how to safely respond to emergency situations.

“Bath salts are extremely dangerous,” said Rosemary Kooy, director of Safe Schools/Healthy Students. On bath salts a person can quickly go from being calm to violent, she said.

Dr. Anthony Ng, medical director of Psychiatric Emergencies Services at Acadia Hospital, is the keynote speaker. Other speakers include Dr. Jonnathan Busko of Eastern Maine Medical Center; Maine Assistant Attorney General William Savage; Bangor police Chief Ron Gastia; and Geoffrey Miller, associate director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse.

Use of bath salts by youth is on the rise in the United States. According to the Northern New England Poison Control Center, users are also getting younger. The average age of users last year was 35, Kooy said. Now it is 20-something, and experts fear use will spread to youth in their teens.

Friday’s forum is sponsored by the Lewiston-Auburn Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative and the L-A Public Health Committee.

“We are encouraged and grateful for this opportunity to prepare our youth and community,” Kooy said. “With law enforcement agents and hospitals in other Maine communities reporting an increase in these dangerous synthetic stimulants, the Lewiston-Auburn community is not waiting to create a community prevention plan.”

The bath salts forum will be held from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at CMMC, 12 High St., in Conference Room A.

For more information, call Kooy at 795-4100, ext. 248