"I AM GOD!" is what one 24-year-old man in Melbourne, Florida screamed at police while running nude and then having sex with a tree. He was suspected of being high on a new designer drug called Flakka, sometimes referred to as Gravel or "$5 insanity." The name is said to possibly be derived from rap star Waka Flocka Flame for having its users going "Hard in the Paint" or "Turnt up" like the rapper's popular party songs. Other theories claim that the name could come from the Spanish word flaca which means "skinny" or the Hispanic slang meaning "beautiful woman."
Flakka is making headlines across the country for its outrageous and dangerous effects on its users. Several videos have already gone viral of users having "psychotic episodes" after ingesting the drug, specifically in the drug's "epicenter" of South Florida. But incidents of people "high on Flakka" have been reported in North Texas, Kentucky County, Seattle, Chicago, Ohio, and California. There have been over 275 Flakka-related incidents this year and more than 25 deaths in the last 10 months, according to Click Orlando.
Similar to the man who claimed he was God himself, Flakka has had the same "super-human" effects on other users. This is because of the psychological effects this drug has on the brain. If this sounds similar to the Bath Salts incidents of 2012, that is because Flakka contains a similar compound, called alpha-PVP.
Flakka causes extreme hallucinations, which inspire a heightened sense of euphoria or excited delirium. In the same city of Melbourne a naked 17-year-old girl covered in blood screamed that she was Satan while charging the police. Florida officials explain why the case sounds similar: "Whatever she was on, it was some mind-altering narcotic. The characteristics exhibited are just like Flakka. One of the characteristics is that it raises your inner core temperature, so that causes them to take their clothes off." Heightened body temperature is a side effect that can lead to aggressive violence and kidney failure.
Flakka is even targeting children now with the distribution of the drug taking the form of sugar-coated candy. The candy Gummy Bears and Sour Patch Kids are individually wrapped and covered in what appears to be sugar (which is what store-bought Sour Patch Kids look like), but instead, the gummy candy is coated in the crystalized drug.
