‘Flakka,’ the new killer drug, is spreading across the country

Kansas City Star ^ | August 14, 2015 | By TONY RIZZO and GLENN E. RICE

[Brad from Tennessee]

It’s a new drug. And it’s a killer.

Known on the street as “flakka,” the synthetic concoction is hitting hard in Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and other parts of the country. It’s causing a rash of emergency room visits and overdose deaths.

In one highly publicized Florida case, a man reportedly high on flakka gnawed on and disfigured another man’s face before he was shot to death by police. Another user tried to break down the door of a police station in Fort Lauderdale, and a few weeks later, a man impaled himself while trying to climb a fence around the same station.

While police in the Kansas City area say they know of no cases involving flakka yet locally, they are aware that it could easily migrate here.

And if it does, said Johnny Bivens, sheriff of Lewis County, Ky., local officials are in for a rough ride.

“This is the worst drug I have ever seen in my 18 years of law enforcement across the board,” Bivens said. “Nothing compares to this.”

Also known as alpha-PVP, it has a similar chemical makeup to other drugs commonly known as “bath salts,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. . .

[ImNotLying]

I think I will just stick to my drug of choice, caffeine! Doing some right now.

[Gene Eric]

Apparently, the “heroin epidemic” is a big problem. The issue was recently mentioned in Trump’s New Hampshire press conference. NH reportedly has the highest incidence per capita.

G’night, FRiends.

[wastoute]

Some of us are old enough to see these same kind of stories in the 60s but the drugs were “red bug pot” or “synthetic xyz”. These people never learn anything. The scaremongering doesn’t work, if anything they just make teenagers want to try the crap. It gets old.

[gattaca]

I thought it was Calgon or Epsom salt!

[Salamander]

Sheetz, which is like a fancy 7-11 local franchise, recently started having multiple armed guards after dark because they apparently now have a “methadone clinic” near it.

When I heard that, I thought of a 70s Linda Ronstadt song.

Crazy.

[Salamander]

I thought those fancy jars you see in BB&B or the Bath Store in the mall.

I bet I “laughed at jokes” I did not understand for *months*, before I finally PMed her and begged for an explanation.

I also did not go into BB&B for that whole time.

:D

[Salamander]

Thank heaven I am not alone.

:)

[Salamander]

“red bug pot” or “synthetic xyz”.

No idea what those are either.

I vividly remember sitting in my HS driver’s ed class, the day they ran the Horrible Teenage Car Wrecks Film, and the girl next to me leaned over, for no apparent reason and whispered that she and her boyfriend had been ‘smoking parsley laced with embalming fluid”.

On the bright side, the teacher assumed my audible reaction to that revelation was caused by the gory dismemberment on the screen.

Weird how stuff like that sticks with you for so long.

When I was 11 or so, my 8th grade teacher aunt gave me “Go Ask Alice” to read.

I was traumatized by that book.

If she meant to dissuade me from *ever* touching drugs, it worked.

Too well.

I have a phobia of them still.

[uglybiker]

Caffeine & nicotine.

Breakfast of Champions!

[gattaca]

I remember hippies saying they smoked banana peels, but I think that was a hoax.

[Salamander]

o_O

[P.O.E.]

What did Wakka Flakka Flame know, and when did he know it?

[gattaca]

That was back in the 70s. I steered clear of drugs. I was told back then they would make you sterile and I believed it.

[wastoute]

At 11 it may work. At 16 it backfires.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[grimalkin]

Alpha-PVP (Flakka) isn’t new. It was actually created in the 1960s and is a substituted cathinone. An acquaintance who works in toxicology said it’s often mixed by users with other chemicals (intentionally or otherwise) which can exacerbate things. The dose is also important. Many of these people in these delirious states often redose for a days. Why on earth anyone would want to put something like this in their body is beyond me.

[canuck_conservative]

α-PVP is sometimes the active ingredient in recreational drugs sold as "bath salts".[13] It may also be distinguished from "bath salts" and sold under a different name: "flakka", a name used in Florida, or "gravel" in other parts of the U.S. It is typically manufactured in China, India, or Pakistan and repackaged in gram packets in the U.S.

>>Wikipedia

[shibumi]

Morning Glory seeds are a potent hallucinogen, similar in effect to LSD.

Earned a place in Pop Music they have.

"..tell you a story, Morning Glory
All about the Serpentine Fire"
- Earth Wind and Fire

Serpentine Fire is the Kundalini sex drive.
And it gets revved up with the Morning Glory.

So they say.

[Does so]

I’m doing caffeine and xylitol...

[Larry Lucido]

That’s the “Beyond” part.