Zombie drug“Zombie drug” flakka causes “excited delirium,” but probably not cannibalism: Experts

It was a gruesome sight: Florida police pulled a 19-year-old Florida State University student away from the bodies of his two victims, only to find that the one of them was severely bitten in the face.

Police officers say the immediately knew who (or, rather, what) the culprit was: flakka, or bath salts, a powerful man-made drug.

NBC News reports that there were similar attacks carried out by drug users under the influence of flakka.

“When you see a case like this where someone is biting off pieces of somebody’s face, could it be flakka? The answer is it absolutely could be a flakka case,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said, adding that the suspect from the Monday night double-murder case was “abnormally strong.”

Snyder added that the suspect, Austin Harrouff, had no previous criminal record and no clear motive in the attacks of Michelle Mishon, 53, and John Stevens, 59. 

Investigators are still working to determine whether or not the suspect had flakka in his system, the sheriff’s suspicion highlights a larger problem with man-made hallucinogens sweeping South Florida. 

According to the Texas Poison Center Network, flakka – or alpha-pyrrolidinopentiophenone (alpha-PDP) – is a drug mostly manufactured in China for roughly $5 per dose. The drug is sold in white or pink crystal chunks, which are “foul-smelling,” according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some users refer to it as “gravel” because it resembles the small stones in the bottom of fish tanks.

Flakka is a psychostimulant drug in the synthetic cathinone family, colloquially known as “bath salts,” and experts say it was likely probably developed as a legal hallucinogen in response to other drugs being criminalized. It is in the same group as the drug mephedrone, and was recently banned in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that it is a stimulant, that is, it increases alertness, attention, and energy. Stimulants, including cocaine and ecstasy, are often referred to as “uppers.”

The Huffington Post reports that Bath salts were first suspected in the case of a man cannibalizing another man in Florida in 2014, but a post-mortem examination found no evidence of the drug in the man’s system.

Monday’s attack, however, appears to reinforce the idea that cannibalism is symptomatic of taking drugs like bath salts or flakka. Experts insists that the incident itself is isolated, and it remains unclear whether or not Harrouff was actually on flakka at the time of the attack. 

The Texas Poison Center says that the active chemical can cause “excited delirium,” which results in hyperstimulation, paranoia, and hallucinations which may lead to “violent aggression.” The center notes, though, that given the ready availability and widespread use of the drug, then if the drug turned users into cannibals, we should have had many more cases of cannibalism to be reported.

Why are we hearing so much about flakka now?
NBC News notes that as was the case with  synthetic marijuana in New York City, the public became aware of flakka in 2015 after a viral video on YouTube, titled Flocka [sic] is Destroying USA, showing a young woman dancing in the rain. Other videos showing people with erratic behavior were posted, attributing the behavior to flakka, but it is not clear whether these videos actually show people taking the drug.

Experts say that the drug’s dangers may have been exaggerated, but that taking the drug is risky becasue it is addictive and can cause fatal overdoses.

“Many users didn’t like the bad effects they had from the drug,” Jim Hall, an epidemiologist in the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities at Nova Southeastern University told People. “but nonetheless were very compelled by compulsion to keep using the drug, as it’s addictive.”

In Broward County, Florida, about sixty people died by the end of 2015 — only fourteen months after the drug began taking its hold on the area. 

A 37-year-old woman, identified only as Stephanie, described her addiction toNBC News. “I remember having seizures and having just continued paranoia and feeling like people were chasing me and following me and talking about me,” she said. “And I still suffer from nightmares and have to take medication for that.”