What is flakka? Florida's dangerous new drug trend
Police in south Florida have seen a growing number of cases of bizarre and uncontrollable behavior linked to a street drug called flakka, one of the newer chemicals in the booming category of synthetic or designer drugs.
In Fort Lauderdale last month, a man tried to break down the front door of a local precinct and told police officers he was high on flakka. A few weeks later, another man who said he had just smoked flakka impaled himself while trying to scale a fence around the police station. In Lake Worth, a city in Palm Beach County, a man armed with a gun -- and naked -- stood on a rooftop and announced, "I feel delusional, and I'm hallucinating!" He told authorities he had vaped flakka with an e-cigarette.
Flakka is a designer drug that can be snorted, smoked, injected or swallowed. It may also be combined with other, softer drugs such as marijuana.
Flakka is most typically made from the chemical alpha-PVP, which is a synthetic version of the amphetamine-like stimulant cathinone. Cathinones are chemicals derived from the khat plant grown in the Middle East and Somalia, where the leaves are frequently chewed for a euphoric buzz.
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