The use of synthetic drug Flakka is rare among high school students, but most consumers take many

Nearly 1% of high school students report using Flakka, a very potent and potentially dangerous synthetic drug, according to a study conducted by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine, the Center for Addiction Research and HIV / HCV (CDUHR). NYU College of Global. Public Health and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

The study, published online in the journal Drug addiction and alcohol dependence, is the first to estimate the prevalence of Flakka use in American adolescents.

Synthetic cathinones – psychoactive substances known as "bath salts" – have been badociated with tens of thousands of emergency visits to the United States. A compound of this type called alpha-PVP, commonly called Flakka, has been badociated with at least 80 deaths in Florida between September 2014 and December 2015 alone.

Flakka has stimulant effects similar to cocaine and is as potent as methamphetamine. Drugs – which can be eaten, snorted, injected or sprayed – are badociated with side effects such as rapid heart rate, elevated body temperature, anxiety, convulsions, agitation, aggression, hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal tendencies.

"Flakka is infamous for his strange links to strange behavior that has caused the media to talk about" zombie "or" cannibal "drugs," said CDUHR researcher Joseph Palamar, Ph.D., MPH, author Main of the study. and Associate Professor at the NYU Population Health Department of Langone Health. "Flakka has not turned users into cannibals, but the drug can actually be very dangerous." He further explained that this stimulant drug was very potent and that its chronic use resulted in death from heart attacks, accidents, suicides and homicides.

Since few studies have focused on the use of Flakka, Palamar and colleagues have sought to understand the prevalence of adolescent use. The researchers badyzed data from the Monitoring the Future 2016/2017 study, which involved a national sample of 3,786 high school seniors in the United States.

Overall, 0.8% of high school students in 2016-17 reported using Flakka in the past year. Students who do not live with their parents and students whose parents have less than a high school diploma were more likely to use it.

In particular, Flakka users reported using other drugs, including Spice / K2 (synthetic cannabinoids) (85.6%), ketamine (72.3%) and marijuana (59.1%). Flakka consumption was badociated with the consumption of a higher number of other drugs and the more frequent use of other drugs, more than half of Flakka users (51.7%) using between 4 and 12 other drugs.

The authors note that the use of Flakka may be underestimated in surveys; Recent studies have shown that the use of Flakka and other "bath salts" is often unintentional, as these drugs are frequently added to the party drug called Ecstasy or Molly.

"The use of Flakka is rarely isolated, since most users frequently consume other medications.This suggests that the use of Flakka or other" bath salts "alone is rare and that the use of several substances can aggravate the side effects of these drugs, "Palamar said. .

The study "Use of" Flakka "among American high school students" is published in the newspaper Drug addiction and alcohol dependence and was written by Palamar along with Katherine Keyes and Caroline Rutherford of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

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