Montana has joined dozens of other states and the federal government in passing a ban on the designer drug known as “bath salts,” along with other synthetic drugs.

Gov. Steve Bullock signed House Bill 140 into law Tuesday in a ceremony with Attorney General Tim Fox, who designed the legislation. Among its effects, the new law bans those compounds that are structurally or chemically derived from any controlled substance classified as a Schedule I through V drug.

But it goes one step further, also banning any substance “that is expressly or impliedly represented to produce or does produce a physiological effect similar to or greater than the effect of a dangerous drug.”

Locally, the drug garnered much attention in the public sphere and the media in August 2011 after then-20-year-old Bryson Connolly fired more than a dozen rounds from an AK-47 at a Flathead County Sheriff’s Office deputy while under the influence of bath salts.

In court, Connolly said he accepted responsibility for his actions despite having no memory of the incident. His attorney, Jack Quatman, called Connolly’s state of mind during the incident a “chemically induced psychosis” caused by “one of the most bizarre drugs on the planet.”

Connolly eventually received a sentence of 10 years in prison followed by 30 years of probation.

Bath salts have been under heavy scrutiny due to their extreme side effects, including but not limited to paranoia, violent behavior, hallucinations, seizures, and suicidal thoughts.

The law is intended to block the manufacture, sale, distribution or possession of so-called designer drugs such as bath salts — marketed under such names as “Vanilla Sky” and “Cloud 9” — and synthetic marijuana — sold under monikers such as “Mr. Smiley” and “K2”.

According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, bath salts were the cause for a whopping 6,136 calls to poison centers in 2011, down to 2,655 in 2012. Part of the reason for that decline was the passage of the federal Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 as well as states’ efforts to clamp down on the drug.

The organization reports that there have been 179 bath salts-related calls to poison control centers in the first two months of 2013.