CBS NEWS
A cheap new designer drug called flakka is causing havoc in cities across America.
It can cause bizarre and violent reactions when people take it and has been found in Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, California and Florida so far, reports CBS News' Mark Albert.
Videos posted online show what can happen
when flakka takes over.
"I am God! I am God! Burn in Hell! I am life!"
one person rants in a video.
Its effects can include psychotic breakdowns,
hallucinations and indiscriminate violence.
In June, an 82-year-old great-grandmother died weeks after being randomly attacked in her Riviera Beach, Florida, home by a man who, police say, was high on flakka.
Another man impaled himself on a fence at the
Fort Lauderdale police station while on the drug.
Mike Haney, who lives near Chicago, said he
doesn't remember what he did for two days after taking flakka. "I was completely out of my mind. I could have killed somebody. I could have killed myself,"
Haney said. Flakka, also known as gravel, is a synthetic stimulant, a cousin of the drug found in baths salts. It's an ever-changing mixture of various substances and can come in a capsule or powder. Users can smoke, swallow or inject the drug.
Florida is now the "epicenter" of the outbreak
with 25 flakka-related deaths in South Florida's
Broward County in the past 10 months alone.
Special agent Kevin Stanfill in Miami is leading
the DEA's flakka fight.
"We have individuals high on flakka that are
coming up to parents with their kids, trying to
take their kids," Stanfill said. "They're not just
getting high, they're going out and hurting other people. You don't see that with a lot of the other drugs like you are with flakka right now."
Stanfill said flakka is often imported from China. It's up to 10-times cheaper than the synthetic drug cocktail "Molly"; just three to five dollars per hit, and easier to get.
Fakka can be ordered online and delivered to
your door. It's described as more powerful than
heroin or cocaine and users are often numb to
pain.
"I feel for those officers who are going to be out on patrol and they roll up on somebody and they are on flakka and they have that superhuman strength," Stanfill said. "When it takes six police officers to hold them down, that's a problem."
Brad Lamm, an addiction interventionist in Los
Angeles, had no flakka patients at his practice
as of just eight weeks ago. Now, they've had a
dozen people calling for help.
"The drug takes away all the inhibitions and also erases the body's ability to clamp down on dopamine and serotonin, so you just feel like you can do anything," Lamm said. "I think we're going to see waves of this that are going to be very, very devastating."
Lamm said even proactive parents who give
their teens urine tests after suspecting drug use are stunned. Those who make flakka are
constantly changing its makeup, so as to fool
common tests.
"The old reliable drug test, you know at the
corner store, will not show positive for this drug. They're not even able to test for it yet. It's just not included. It's ahead of the curve," Lamm said.
Lamm said his patients on this drug are taking
several weeks longer to recover than those on
other bath salts, or even crystal meth. Often, the key ingredient in flakka is known as
alpha-PVP.
The DEA's Miami division told CBS News it has already seized over three times the amount of alpha-PVP in the first six months of this year than it seized in all of last year.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved
A cheap new designer drug called flakka is causing havoc in cities across America.
It can cause bizarre and violent reactions when people take it and has been found in Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, California and Florida so far, reports CBS News' Mark Albert.
Videos posted online show what can happen
when flakka takes over.
"I am God! I am God! Burn in Hell! I am life!"
one person rants in a video.
Its effects can include psychotic breakdowns,
hallucinations and indiscriminate violence.
In June, an 82-year-old great-grandmother died weeks after being randomly attacked in her Riviera Beach, Florida, home by a man who, police say, was high on flakka.
Another man impaled himself on a fence at the
Fort Lauderdale police station while on the drug.
Mike Haney, who lives near Chicago, said he
doesn't remember what he did for two days after taking flakka. "I was completely out of my mind. I could have killed somebody. I could have killed myself,"
Haney said. Flakka, also known as gravel, is a synthetic stimulant, a cousin of the drug found in baths salts. It's an ever-changing mixture of various substances and can come in a capsule or powder. Users can smoke, swallow or inject the drug.
Florida is now the "epicenter" of the outbreak
with 25 flakka-related deaths in South Florida's
Broward County in the past 10 months alone.
Special agent Kevin Stanfill in Miami is leading
the DEA's flakka fight.
"We have individuals high on flakka that are
coming up to parents with their kids, trying to
take their kids," Stanfill said. "They're not just
getting high, they're going out and hurting other people. You don't see that with a lot of the other drugs like you are with flakka right now."
Stanfill said flakka is often imported from China. It's up to 10-times cheaper than the synthetic drug cocktail "Molly"; just three to five dollars per hit, and easier to get.
Fakka can be ordered online and delivered to
your door. It's described as more powerful than
heroin or cocaine and users are often numb to
pain.
"I feel for those officers who are going to be out on patrol and they roll up on somebody and they are on flakka and they have that superhuman strength," Stanfill said. "When it takes six police officers to hold them down, that's a problem."
Brad Lamm, an addiction interventionist in Los
Angeles, had no flakka patients at his practice
as of just eight weeks ago. Now, they've had a
dozen people calling for help.
"The drug takes away all the inhibitions and also erases the body's ability to clamp down on dopamine and serotonin, so you just feel like you can do anything," Lamm said. "I think we're going to see waves of this that are going to be very, very devastating."
Lamm said even proactive parents who give
their teens urine tests after suspecting drug use are stunned. Those who make flakka are
constantly changing its makeup, so as to fool
common tests.
"The old reliable drug test, you know at the
corner store, will not show positive for this drug. They're not even able to test for it yet. It's just not included. It's ahead of the curve," Lamm said.
Lamm said his patients on this drug are taking
several weeks longer to recover than those on
other bath salts, or even crystal meth. Often, the key ingredient in flakka is known as
alpha-PVP.
The DEA's Miami division told CBS News it has already seized over three times the amount of alpha-PVP in the first six months of this year than it seized in all of last year.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved
Semper Fidelis
![[Image: SyAa0qj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/SyAa0qj.png)
USMC
USMC
Nemo me impune lacessit
