You may not have heard of it yet, but like many designer
drugs this one causes erratic behavior and often death.
A new designer drug has hit the streets of South Florida,
killing a young man last week. Known as “gravel” or, more commonly, Flakka,
alpha-PVP has been on the DEA radar for over a year. Many of these designer
drugs, known as “bath salts” and entering the market from other countries,
mainly Eastern countries, have had an effect on populations elsewhere giving
the US a warning of things to come.
“Cathinone” is the scientific name for the family of
synthetic drugs that have burst onto the scene lately, being marketed as plant
food, detergent incense and, thus the name, bath salt. These drugs only became
popular recently, but have been around since the 1920’s. There is little known
about the immediate effects of this and other designer drugs and nothing known
about the long-term effects. That is what makes this class of drug so scary. We
have seen how out of control, an individual can be who is under the influence
of bath salts, when not long ago a man using a similar drug stripped down and
assaulted homeless Ronald Pappo before the police shot him to death.
The new drug is molecularly similar to antidepressants known
NRI’s (Norepinephrine Re-Uptake inhibitors but have a much different effect on
human beings. This is a very dangerous and hard to contain drug. It’s dangerous
for above mentioned and obvious reasons. It is hard to contain because it is
cheap and if demand rises will flood through customs in packages and delivered
to a buyer’s doorstep. One of the contributing factors of the popularity of
these drugs is that it is not tested by conventional drug tests, making it an
alluring alternative to more established drugs for the millions of American’s
who have to take drug tests for probation or work.
It’s cheap, plentiful, novel and undetectable by common tests.
Bath salts are no longer sold in head shops and gas stations, but have been
substituted for more costly drugs by street dealers. It’s hard to say if this
is fad drug or here to stay. Many young adults in Florida are buying a bath
salt drug that’s active ingredient, MDPV, reportedly gives a similar high to
Ecstasy. It is marketed by dealers as “Molly” (short for Molecular MDMA) and
MDMA is Ecstasy in its purest form. However, what costs the street dealers less
than $100 per kilogram, can cost the unknowing end user the same price for a
single gram.
There are hundreds of these designer drug compounds and law
enforcement still isn’t the answer. Until real education about drugs is
introduced, young people will not have the tools to properly weigh the pros and
cons of experimenting with drugs like these. The DARE program is a failure. It
would be great if we could rely on parents to educate their own children regarding
the dangers of addictive drugs, like Flakka, it’s never going to be a reality.
So what is the answer? Trial and error, perhaps, with a
faster measurement dynamic of current program success. We cannot allow a
program like DARE to be implemented by the same entity that gets the majority
of it’s funding from the thing it is trying to prevent. The CDC and State
Health Departments should have an escalating role in the prevention of drug
abuse in young people. In fact, these agencies are more relevant to drug abuse
than any other and must eventually be tasked with the jurisdiction over the
areas or drug abuse and mental health. The old way is not working. Quite the
opposite.
Law enforcement’s long-time jurisdiction over drugs and
abuse has been a huge failure and led to a conflict of interest for our
Departments of Law Enforcement. More so, growing up in a society that has always
attempted to control drug abuse in this manner, it can be difficult to imagine
a better way. This mishandling of our attempt to curb drug abuse has led to
daily, tragic miscarriages of justices. Drugs being the most prevalent legal
offense has shifted our attention concerning true criminal behavior and actions
and resulted in massive amounts of money for the agencies that nibble at the
problem.
Drugs, like Flakka, flow through our borders, and now
through our postal services from other countries. Police make a valiant effort
at fighting the drug trade, but as time has proven, are just inadequate. Law enforcement
can’t stop something that is in such high demand by the people. Something must
be done to minimize the demand. If our schools could effectively drill into our
young students the absurdity and insanity of addictive drug use the way they
drill in the multiplications tables, we would see a drop in demand and the
cartels and pharmaceutical companies would have to find new jobs because
neither is going to cater to the < 1 million Americans that want drugs, if
our programs were successful. But, do we really want that?
After all it’s not just cartels and big pharma that makes
money on the drug trade.
Flakka isn't news. It is one of hundreds of drugs just from its
family of designer drugs. It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last drug to
make it into America. Until we pull back our own veils and see the failure that
this “War on Drugs” has become, will we be disturbed enough to make a change
and stop the problem at it’s source: the demand.
