One percent of American teens use flakka – but that could be more

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"The main finding is that less than 1% of high school students reportedly used flakka in the past year," said Joseph Palamar, associate professor of population health at NYU Langone and senior author of 39, study, published Tuesday in the journal Addiction and Alcohol Addiction.
The research, which according to Palamar is the first national study on the use of flakka, analyzed data from Monitoring the Future, an annual survey of drug use among high school students, conducted by the United States. Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan.

The study found that 19.2% of students who had reported using flakka the previous year had used it more than 40 times. Those who consume it knowingly are more likely to live far from their parents and to have used other drugs.

"The important thing is that we can draw attention to this dangerous drug right now," Palamar said. "We finally have prevalence estimates on a national sample, which has not been done yet."

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However, even more people could have used the flakka without necessarily knowing it.

"I think a lot of people are using it unknowingly, especially the users of Ecstasy and Molly," he said.

Other experts are in agreement.

"The thing we've found very clearly – and we know it from the new world of psychoactive substances – people say they're taking something, but that does not necessarily mean it's what it's like." it is in. We know it from ecstasy, "said Dr. Dan Castellanos, director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Florida International University, did not participate in the new research.
In Castellanos own research, only one of the six samples analyzed actually contained flakka, even though users thought it was what they were taking.

According to the new study, the stimulant, which has been termed "poor man's cocaine", caused 80 deaths in the state of Florida alone, between September 2014 and December 2015. There were 2,000 visits to the country. emergency related to its use in Broward County during this period; 15% were people under 25 years old. One of the youngest, according to the study, was 13 years old.

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Flakka, also known as gravel, belongs to the class of new psychoactive substances, Castellanos said. Some related products are called bath salts. It can be smoked, injected or snorted.

"Although they do not look like your tub salts, they sometimes look like them," he said. "These are all new psychoactive substances, which means that they are chemically manufactured, they are imported, there are many variations, there are different tips and foci over time."

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Flakka is also a stimulant. "People are really very agitated," said Castellanos. "This includes things like agitation, effects on all the typical systems of your body, high blood pressure, a pulse, sometimes even your temperature."

He is also known for his more serious reactions, including a man who broke the gates of the hurricane after using drugs and a woman who ran to the streets shouting that she was Satan.

"What really characterizes the flakka is the delusional behavior sometimes associated with its use," Palamar said. "It's weird, and you'll see that word, even in medical journals, because there is no other way to describe it."

Although not all users of the drug show these reactions, Palamar cautioned against using it.

"It's something you should know: it does not have this effect on everyone who uses it," he said. "It's a very dangerous drug, it's a very powerful drug, it's as powerful as methamphetamine."

Journalist Carina Storrs contributed to this report.

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