New designer drug Flakka might make its users feel super and superhuman at the same time, but the unearthly high it provides is not only short lived, it’s potentially lethal as well.
That’s the message law enforcement agencies in Florida want to send dealers and buyers of the crack-like amphetamine now taking the Sunshine State by storm and gradually spreading across the country like a pox.
Since 2010, Florida’s seen an outbreak of bizarre and sometimes fatal crimes related to the unpleasant side effects of the synthetic dope which is so cheap to buy that it’s sometimes called “$5 Insanity.”
That list of unexpected health consequences from smoking, snorting, injecting or ingesting the drug includes a controversial syndrome police have dubbed Excited Delirium -- sudden unprovoked rages accompanied by deadly spikes in body temperature.
Although not a condition that any accredited medical organization has actually validated yet, some doctors, and especially coroners, claim E.D. syndrome is very real and frightening, and that Flakka’s becoming notorious for bringing it on.
“It reminds me of Angel Dust in the early 80s,” Dr. Jon Lapook says. “I was in the emergency room at Columbia Med back then and I knew when someone came in *dusted* because they’d have seven policemen holding down every part of their body and it seemed like they had superhuman strength -- sounds like this is the same sort of thing.”
As with previously popular street drugs, such as Molly and Ecstasy, foul-smelling Flakka increases the brain’s pleasure chemical, dopamine, so initially a person on it feels both elated and alert.
But those sensations can quickly subside, experts warn, giving way instead to extremely aggressive behavior or even superhuman acts of strength and violence.
“The individual becomes psychotic, they often rip off their clothes, run out into the street violently, and have an adrenaline-like strength,” explains Jim Hall, an epidemiologist at Nova Southeastern University.
Then, says Hall, “the police are called and it takes four or five officers to restrain them. And if they don't receive immediate medical attention, they can die.”
During 2014 alone, there were nearly 700 Flakka-related episodes in Florida, according to a DEA spokesperson, although he didn’t reveal what percentage of those actually ended in Excited Delirium or death.
Nevertheless, “It’s pretty serious,” warns Saint Lucie County Sheriff's Office special investigator, Sergeant Rob Pettit.
