Drug dealers are mixing ‘Zombie Drug’

Kuwait Upto Date • October 6, 2017 • 0 Comments

Drug dealers are mixing cocaine with the infamous ‘Zombie Drug’ flakka and selling it to unsuspecting people, the psychiatrist who heads a private crisis resolution team has warned.

“There’s a lot of mixing going on,” Mark Xuereb told Lovin Malta in an interview at his Birkirkara clinic. “The Crisis Resolution Team gets on average two or three cases of people on flakka every month, but none of them actually say they had taken it. They would say they had taken another drug, but then tests would show they would have also taken flakka.”

Flakka, also called ‘gravel’ and the ‘Devil’s Drug’, is a synthetic bath salt that resembles cocaine in that it comes in white powder, but is extremely cheap; Xuereb said 0.5g can be bought for around €10.

It gives users the stimulant effects of cocaine but also the hallucinogenic effects of psychedelics, and its symptoms can be devastating. Indeed, users across the world have been reported running naked through traffic, throwing themselves at car windows or off balconies, and attempting to perform sex acts on trees.

“What it does is it squeezes the chemicals dopamine and serotonin out of the brain’s limbic system,” Xuereb said, referring to the part of the brain which deals with memory, emotions and the fight-or-fight survival instinct. “This surge of dopamine and serotonin breaks down brain cells, nerves and nerve connections, and puts the limbic system , the primitive part of your brain, in complete control as it is in animals.”

“You literally end up losing reason…we’ve had cases of people running naked, banging their heads and screaming incomprehensibly, of husbands beating up their wives and wives beating up their husbands. At best, users just get really hyped up and agitated but it effects everyone and even a very small dose can throw you over the edge.”

Drug dealers are mixing ‘Zombie Drug’ was last modified: October 6th, 2017 by Kuwait Upto Date