What is Flakka Drug?
Flakka, also known as flocka is a designer, synthetic, psychoactive street drug containing alpha pyrrolidinovalerophenone (Alpha PVP). It is said to be as potent as methamphetamine, yet with an even higher tendency for addiction development in those who use it. The use of Flakka or flocka traces its origins to South Florida where hospitals continue to treat patients admitted with varying symptoms associated with smoking, injecting, and snorting the drug. Flakka is often the active ingredient in recreational drugs sold as “bath salts around the globe and also goes by the name of gravel.
What does Flakka look like?
The appearance of flakka is crystalline like bath salts and crystal meth, it is delivered in small, clear, or pink pebble crystals; a reason it is referred to as gravel.
Uses OF flakka
Flakka has no medicinal use. Most recreational drug users depend on the drug for the intense euphoric feeling or high that accompanies its administration. The intense feeling of euphoria produced by flakka / flocka drugs results from the flood of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Available information from current research efforts on rodents shows that flakka is as addictive as bath salts.
Health risk of Flakka or Flocka The Drug
The health risks associated with the use of flakka or flocka drugs are overwhelming. The thin line between life and death when using flocka drug is so blurred that the majority of addicts often die while trying to get the flocka high. The body’s reaction to the effects of Flakka begins as soon as it absorbs the drug. At this point muscle fibers in the body start to dissolve into the bloodstream, making the body to start moving uncontrollably, forcing limbs to stiffen and shoot out and the head to drop down below the shoulders. This period is marked by violent behavior and spikes in body temperature which exposes the addict and others to severe bodily injury which sometimes results in murder and, or death. The weird body movements and irrational violence during this flakka episode is zombie-like, a reason the drug was nicknamed the zombie drug. As the tolerance level of the body to flakka increases, it forces the effect of the drug to diminish making the user require more and more flakka to sustain the initial levels of flakka high, this action leads to flakka overdose and sudden death in many cases.
Side Effects of Flakka / flocka Drug
- Extreme agitation
- Renal damage
- Euphoric sensations
- Depression
- Brain Damage
- Rapid heart rate and palpitations
- Abnormal Jerking muscle movements
- Increase in blood pressure
- Delirious thoughts and delusions of superhuman strength
- Unusual alertness.
- Fatigue
- Bizarre aggressive behavior
- Profound paranoia.
Legality of Flakka / Flocka the Drug
Being a new drug, the legal status of Flakka or flocka the drug varies from country to country. The drug is illegal in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Norway. In the United States, flakka or flocka drug is a controlled drug in New Mexico, Delaware, Florida, and Oklahoma. In most states where it is categorized as an unscheduled drug under the Controlled Substance Act (CSA), sale, being in possession or buying flakka / flocka or similar molecules for human consumption can be illegal under the Federal Analogue Act, under which any substance “substantially similar” to an illegal substance listed in Schedule I or II is treated like those in the schedules. Flakka / flocka is similar in many respect to many narcotics so listed in Schedule I and II of the Act.
How to Recover from flakka Addiction
You don’t recover from addiction and the long-term effects of flakka by simply stopping the use of the drug, you recover by creating a new life where it is easier to not depend on flakka and related substances. If you don’t create a new life, then all the factors and situations that initially made you dependent on flakka will eventually catch up with you again. In order for flakka rehab to be successful you must:
Avoid High-Risk Situations – Stay away from people with whom you usually use flocka, flakka and other related substances. Stay away from people who you have conflicts with, who make you want to use flakka, and people who celebrate you while using flakka.
Learn to Relax- learn how to relax your tension without the influence of flakka by using simple techniques such as going for a walk, to more structured techniques like meditation. These relaxation methods have been proven to change the lives of many addicts and helped them recover from addiction.
Manage Stress Properly –Learning how to effectively manage stress is very vital for addiction recovery. Stress management is very significant because when you are tense, you tend to do what is familiar and wrong instead of what is new and right. This often leads to relapse into old habits which ultimately promotes addiction and undermines the prime objective of flakka rehab.
Be Honest–Lies and addiction often go together, because most have to lie about getting drugs, using it, and hiding its physical and health consequences. By the time addiction has fully developed, lying has fully become part of life. In order for recovery to be successful, individuals must learn to be honest about what they truly want from life, or else they might end up like the many who have paid the ultimate price of substance abuse with their lives.
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