What is flakka? Partnership to End Addiction

“Flaco” means thin, while “la flaca” in rough translation is a party term for pretty, thin girl. In other words, Flakka is a type of bath salt, but not all bath salts are Flakka. Some bath salts may be more potent than Flakka, others less, and there is really no way of telling beforehand. Flakka only arrived on the drug market in the mid-2000s and has since become a significant threat to public health in many areas of Florida, and Broward County in particular. Tia is the managing editor and was previously a senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com and other outlets.

Street Names for Flakka

This means that it is a substance that has no approved medical value, yet has a high potential for being abused. The substance is illegal in the United States and several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and Ireland. In Los Angeles, California we treat drug and alcohol addiction, prescription drugs addiction, and co-occurring disorders. Is ready to provide top care and to expand access to essential health services and meet the health needs of our patients.

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Here’s what you need to know about the latest controversial designer drug. Despite early and well-publicized reports of people high on flakka literally eating others in fits of insanity, there is no evidence that Flakka causes berserk cannibalism. Avenues Recovery is a community-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation center with locations across the United States. China, Pakistan and India are the main suppliers of flakka, Forbes reported. Almost anyone can purchase a kilogram of the drug online for about $2000, and bring in up to $50,000 in profit, NBC reported.

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• It may, however, cause an excited delirium resulting in wild, unpredictable, and severely violent behavior in those under this drug’s influence.
• It comes in different forms and can be eaten, injected, smoked or snorted.
• Another serious, potentially lingering side effect of flakka is the effect on kidneys.
• According to a survey from February 2019, 1% of the teens in America have used flakka knowingly, and more have used it unknowingly.
• It “takes the form of a white or pink, foul-smelling crystal,” the National Institute on Drug Abuse says in its advisory about the drug.
• After that, it takes about days for the tolerance to be reduced to half and weeks to be back at baseline (in the absence of further consumption).

Experts worry that some survivors of flakka overdoses may be on dialysis for the rest of their life. Law enforcement and community activists were instrumental in limiting the damage done by the drug’s dangerous effects. Most reports of flakka after 2016 turned out to be other similar chemicals in the bath salt family. Α-PVP, or alpha-Pyrrolidinovalerophenone, is a synthetic substance belonging to a group called the substituted cathinones. Substituted cathinones are derivatives of the naturally occurring substance cathinone, which is one of the psychoactive principles in khat (Catha edullis).

Prescription Drug Abuse

For individuals trying to stop abusing flakka drugs, it can be hard to do so due to withdrawal symptoms. Luckily, with professional care and medication, this process can be made comfortable for addicts. Accepts most major insurance providers and private healthcare policies. We offer free insurance verification as well as eligibility and benefits for both behavioral and mental health treatment services. Please fill out our insurance verification form here to verify your insurance. Flakka may also lead to hyperthermia, whereby the temperature of one’s body rises to 105 degrees.

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It most commonly takes the form of white or pink, foul-smelling crystals that can be eaten, snorted, injected, smoked, or vaporized. One single dose—costing under five dollars—can give a user an intense, fleeting high. One single dose can also lead a user into severe paranoia, aggression, and hyper-stimulation. The high from Flakka can last up to several hours, much longer than that of cocaine. As it sits in the brain, the drug simultaneously destroys neurons.

• Its street name, gravel, accurately describes its appearance in both texture and size.
• The belief of having superhuman strength is a side effect of flakka, NBC reported.
• Combining other drugs with flakka can result in intense symptoms likened to those from the heavy use of benzodiazepines.
• However, since Flakka mimics methamphetamine and cocaine, its long term effects may rival the two mentioned illicit drugs.
• Rescue crews and emergency department staff need to give sedatives to these patients to calm them and make them safe.
• From 2010, where there were no records of use in the state of Florida, to 870 instances just 4 years later.

Synthetic cathinones, in general, are addictive, and the longer an individual uses Flakka, the higher their tolerance level becomes, leading to compulsive cravings. The first flakka-related fatality occurred in January, when Rhonda Sanchez overdosed with flakka and other drugs in her system in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to the Sun-Sentinel. In March, a man high on flakka tried to scale a fence and impaled himself in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, CBS reported. The belief of having superhuman strength is a side effect of flakka, NBC reported. This month, a man who also took flakka attempted to break into the police department at Vero Beach, Florida, and spit on the deputy according to NBC. “I would say of all the drugs I’ve seen — cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, Oxycontin — this is the absolute worst,” ER doctor Dr. Nail El Sanadi told NBC earlier this month.

However, research that has been conducted has shown that the drug can be toxic to the kidneys and cause renal failure. Users have reported that the drug use of flakka can trigger intense and uncontrollable urges to ingest the drug again. Flakka has been linked to several deaths by suicide, what is flakka drug wikipedia as well as heart attacks. The drug can also raise body temperature dangerously high, leading to kidney damage or failure. The result is to “flood the brain” with these chemicals, Hall said. Cocaine and methamphetamine have similar modes of action in the brain, but the chemicals in flakka have longer-lasting effects, Hall said.