MO - Bulging eyes and arguing with buildings: Missouri reports new cases of flakka use, Oct. 4, 2018

[EuTuCroquet?]

Bulging eyes and arguing with buildings: New cases of flakka use reported in Missouri

Police in Bonne Terre, Missouri, report two new cases of people suspected of using the street drug flakka, a synthetic bath salt known to cause bizarre behavior and sometimes death. This time, police say, the men were brothers.

One of the brothers overdosed and caused a disturbance at an apartment in town on Saturday, Bonne Terre Police Chief Doug Calvert told the Daily Journal in Park Hills, Missouri.

Then, on Monday, “at the same apartment, his brother went berserk and tore up the apartment. Fortunately, someone was smart enough to open the door this time, so no one dove out of a window,” Calvert told the newspaper.

Law enforcement officials are “sounding the alarm” because they suspect both men were using flakka, KMOV in St. Louis reported.
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In one of the most high-profile cases of flakka abuse in the state, four people went on a naked rampage in November 2017 through the town of Sullivan in eastern Missouri.

They barked and yelled and broke into buildings, stripping off their clothes in public and showered in soda water, police said.

“We had multiple incidents this past weekend of people on some kind of substance acting out of their minds,” Sullivan Police Lt. Patrick Johnson told the Sullivan Independent Newsat the time. “Barking like dogs, running up and down the street, or other farm animals, entering people’s homes, breaking into a business, yelling outside of local businesses.”

Police suspected the users had mixed methamphetamine with flakka, a drug reported in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and other parts of the country before it hit Missouri.
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George Mekhjian, an emergency department physician with SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital-St. Charles, told Fox 2 in St. Louis he thinks the flakka problem in Missouri is getting worse.

“They come yelling and screaming, and spitting, scratching, punching, hitting,” he said. “We have to restrain them physically and chemically. And when I say physically, they are so agitated that they act like what we call superhumans. It takes us like six to 10 adults to restrain the patient.”

Calvert told the Daily Journal that in nearly 30 years of law enforcement work he’s never seen anything like this.
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[EuTuCroquet?]

I wonder why/how it started out in Florida? ...

2 incidents in St. Francois County leads to 'Flakka' worries

Flakka is a synthetic street drug that originated in Florida in 2014.

People who use it are known to suffer severe side effects including bizarre behavior, agitation, paranoia, delusions and possible super strength.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

More on the history of flakka, what's known as a "designer drug."

Florida Zombie Drug Flakka: Everything You Need to Know – Rolling Stone

Flakka [is] a highly addictive designer drug that causes paranoia and psychosis. Flakka, sometimes known as gravel, is closely related to bath salts, a synthetic cathinone that police linked to the infamous face-eating attack in Miami four years ago. The man-made drug that’s manufactured primarily in China entered the states only a few years ago, but didn’t soar in popularity until 2013. Florida has seen the brunt of the flakka abuse. The epidemic began to spread to the Midwest last year.
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People who use flakka will at first feel euphoric, highly sociable, stimulated, more focused and have an increased sex drive, said Cidambi. But the anticipated high will wear off quickly, leaving users to up their flakka intake. And the more someone abuses the designer drug, she added, the more they will begin to feel the negative side effects.

Flakka users will experience what the National Institute on Drug Abuse calls “excited delirium“: a debated condition involving hallucinations, paranoia, increased strength and hyperstimulation. Your heart will race. You will have panic attacks. Your sex drive will plummet. You may become depressed and suicidal. And like Harrouff, you could become extremely psychotic and violent.

“It’s easy to get there, though,” Cidambi said. “As you crash you’re going to feel all the withdrawal you want to not feel … unfortunately it’s their tolerance that pushes them to the other side.”

Vaping with flakka will make you feel these effects far quicker than any other method because the drug goes straight in your blood stream. That could easily lead to an overdose, the federal health institute states.​

 

[Moonracer]

This is just horrible. I wish people would realize drugs are not the way! They are death and destruction!

 

[MaryG12]

I wonder why/how it started out in Florida? ...

2 incidents in St. Francois County leads to 'Flakka' worries

Flakka is a synthetic street drug that originated in Florida in 2014.

People who use it are known to suffer severe side effects including bizarre behavior, agitation, paranoia, delusions and possible super strength.​

I remember when that started in 2014. Yes, Florida is known for its drug problems, especially in Sarasota and Manatee Counties.

The ongoing theory about living in Florida is this:

If you are not into beaches, the ocean, or Disney, you may find yourself tremendously bored.

That is not even taking into account the lack of industry down here outside of orange groves and Tervis Tumblers. And, it's not just trailer park, poverty pockets prone to drug use, either. Plenty of rich and famous people down here who use drugs, too. Like when Donna Betts (Dickey's wife) violated her parole. She has quite the legal record.