cathinones | Faith Seeking Understanding

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Like a snowball that begins rolling down from the very top of a hill, negative consequences from synthetic drugs have been building momentum for several years. LiveScience posted an article based on a CDC report that highlighted the increase of synthetic-cannabinoid overdoses. Between 2010 and 2015 there were a total of 456 synthetic-cannabinoid intoxications recorded by 101 US hospitals and clinics included in the study. While the overdoses from these substances are still a fraction of all drug overdoses in the US, their percentage has increased every year since 2010.

The CDC report was based on data gathered from the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC), a toxicology surveillance and research tool. The ToxIC Registry was established by the American College of Medical Toxicology in 2010. Of the 456 cases of synthetic-cannabinoid intoxication treated by physicians in the ToxIC, 277 reported synthetic cannabinoids were the only substance used. The findings of the CDC report are representative of what doctors in emergency departments from around the country are seeing.

Among the 456 cases, 70.6% were in persons aged 19-65 and 27.4% were in persons aged 13-18; 83.1% were male. The reported adverse effects were primarily cardiovascular-related (17.0%), pulmonary-related (7.6%) or central nervous system-related (66.1%). The CNS symptoms included agitation, CNS depression or coma, and delirium/toxic psychosis. The annual percentage of cases increased significantly in all four US Census regions, except the South. “The largest overall increases during these periods took place in the Northeast, primarily driven by increases at the New York City sites.” See the chart below which was taken from the CDC report:

The CDC report mentioned a June 2015 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) for June 12, 2015 that found a 300% increase of telephone calls to poison centers related to synthetic cannabinoid use from January 2015 to April 2015. The report suggested that synthetic cannabinoids posed an emerging public health threat. The number of calls spiked dramatically in mid-April. Look at the report for a chart showing the spike from less than 100 calls per week in the third week of March 2015 to over 500 weekly in the third week of April 2015.

Then there are the “bath salts.” The New York Times published an article referring to Brooklyn users of K2, a synthetic cathinone (bath salts), as “zombies.” In an area around the subway station at Myrtle Avenue and Broadway, emergency workers transported 33 people with suspected K2 overdoses to the hospital in ONE DAY. Brian Arthur, who filmed and then posted what he saw on online said: “It’s like a scene out of a zombie movie, a horrible scene . . . . This drug truly paralyzed people.” While responders helped an unsteady man into an ambulance, another man nearby was slumped against a fire hydrant.

Pairs of police officers walked the blocks around Broadway and Myrtle Avenue, checking the vital signs of men they found unconscious. Anyone who was unresponsive was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance.

Keep in mind this was after legislation by The New York City Council last Fall banned synthetic cannabinoids and threatened businesses and owners who sold K2 with closings, hefty fines and jail time. So it seems that the synthetic drug trade in NYC simply switched to synthetic cathinones.

A 2012 article in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, “The Toxicology of Bath Salts,” provides some background information on the emergence of synthetic cathinones as a drug of abuse. Synthesis of cathinone derivatives occurred as early as the late 1920s. Methcathinone was synthesized in 1928 and mephedrene in 1929. While a few of the derivatives have been investigated for medical use, only bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) have been approved for a medical use in the US and Europe. Wellbutrin is approved to treat depression; Zyban is used as a smoking-cessation aide.

Numerous synthetic cathinone derivatives have become popular for use as “legal highs.” Exactly when these derivatives gained popularity amongst club goers and others seeking new drugs of abuse is difficult to pinpoint, but mentions in Internet drug forums began in 2007.

In “Synthetic Cathinones: A New Public Health Problem,” Karila et al. described the major clinical effects of synthetic cathinones and their impact on public health. Together with synthetic cannabinoids they account for more than two thirds of the New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) available. Again, cardiac psychiatric and neurological adverse effects are the most common ones requiring medical care. “These drugs, still not controlled by international laws, are often produced and used to mimic the effects of controlled drugs such as cocaine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), and methamphetamine.”

If you’re skeptical about what I’ve written so far, try this article from High Times, “What’s in Synthetic Cannabis and Why Is It So Dangerous?” In order to study the endocannabinoid system in the body, scientists created these compounds for research purposes. The author is quick to point out that synthetic cannabis does not contain cannabis or synthetic cannabinoids. While the compounds bind to cannabinoid receptors in the brain, they only have a “slight relation” to natural THC. “Doctors do not fully understand how most of these compounds interact with the body, and some can be extremely harmful and even deadly.”

The author suggested they would be better named: synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRA). THC is only a partial agonist of CB₁ and CB₂,the cannabinoid receptors, where SCRAs are designed to bind strongly to the receptors and exert THC-like effects. These effects can be 100 times more potent than cannabis. The unusually strong binding of SCRAs to cannabinoid receptors can produce unforeseen downstream effects in the brain and nervous system.

If you consume any of these chemicals, you are literally performing an experiment on your body, and a dangerous one at that. People have suffered from seizures, cardiac arrest, kidney failure, severe reduction in body temperature, etc. and doctors don’t know how it happens or who is more susceptible.

Not only are there many different classes of these compounds, each one of the general classes of compounds contains dozens of different related compounds. “Regulatory agencies play a game of cat and mouse with designer drug manufacturers as they constantly use different compounds to bypass laws.” While the Us government continues to make different groups of SCRAs illegal, underground chemists seem to be one step ahead, making newer compounds that tend to be more toxic and harmful than the previous generation.

Steer clear of these dangerous substances, treat them like dangerous addictive drugs on par with methamphetamine, ecstasy pills and prescription narcotics. This stuff is not weed, and when your friends smoke it you should confront them about it and make them understand they are putting their lives at risk. Even if you need to pass a drug test, don’t use this stuff; even one toke of Spice can land you in intensive care and put you on a dialysis machine with kidney failure.

Let the fact sink in that what we just reviewed was a clear warning from High Times to avoid synthetic cannabinoids. Alternately, there are synthetic cathinones that can turn you into a zombie. Think about the consequences before you try some.

There’s a new drug in town—Flakka! A news report in January of 2015 from Broward County Florida’s WPBF 25 reported a disturbance call at a local nightclub that led to an arrest of an individual who was in possession of a bag of flakka. It looks like a cross between crack cocaine and meth. It can be snorted, smoked, ingested or shot up. And, “It has a strong odor like a sweaty sock.” Sounds inviting.

On March 13, 2015, there was a report by NBC South Florida that a fifty year-old man was trying the BREAK INTO the Fort Lauderdale Police Department because he thought 25 cars were chasing him down Broward Boulevard. He was kicking the hurricane glass with enough force that both the glass and the door were shaking. Again, he was high on flakka. Here is a security video of the man in the act of trying to break into the locked door of the department.

A thirty-four year-old man wearing only sneakers and socks was running on Broward Boulevard (again). He thought that people had stolen his clothes and were trying to kill him. He said he’d rather die than be caught by these people. He told police he was running down the middle of the street because if he was hit by a car, they would stop chasing him. You guessed it: high on flakka. Here is a video and report on the streaker.

In addition to these incidents, there was a naked man with a loaded gun on the roof of a building in Lake Worth shouting that someone was trying to kill him. When he saw the responding police officers approaching, he placed the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. He misfired. Again, he’d smoked (vaped) flakka. And a twenty-six year-old man faces attempted murder charges after attacking an 86-year-old woman when he was high on flakka. You can access reports and videos on these two incidents here.

Now this flakka story is just too weird. Police in Melbourne Florida responded to a burglary call and discovered a naked man (of course) who claimed he was God before he got into a “tussle” with a police officer. This was after the officer hit the man TWICE with a taser. But he pulled out the probes and attacked the officer with his fists. Aleksander Chan for Gawker quoted a report by WKMG saying: “The officer punched Crowder in the face and a scrum ensued, with Crowder saying that he was Thor and trying to stab the officer with the officer’s badge, police said.”

Flakka is a new psychoactive substance (NSP) typically made from alpha-PVP, a synthetic cathinone. Cathinones are chemicals from the khat plant grown in the Middle East and Somalia. Effective February 27, 2014, the DEA listed alpha-PVP and 9 other synthetic cathinones as Schedule I controlled substances with a temporary ban. How it works (pharmacologically) is not known. It is believed to be similar to MDPV, which acts as a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI). But no substantive research has been conducted yet on alpha-PVP.

In 2012, an Australian man died after injecting alpha-PVP. He stripped off his clothes, jumped a barbed wire fence into a shipping yard and smashed a window in a psychotic fit. He was restrained by several security guards inside the shipping yard and went into cardiac arrest. His girlfriend, also high on alpha-PVP, was covered in blood as she fell from their truck. She then took her top off and ran away, yelling, “Help me, help me.”

Jim Hall, an epidemiologist, said in a CBS News report that cathinones like flakka are the next—and more potent—class of drugs taking over after MDMA. They are designed to flood the brain with dopamine, and then block the pre-synaptic neuron from removing the dopamine from synapse. The result is an intense feeling of euphoria. Hall said that “snacking,” taking more flakka or other drugs while high, often leads to serious health problems, such as rapid heart rate, agitation, extreme aggression and psychosis. He said they are starting to see cases of excited delirium with flakka, as noted in the above reports.

[Excited delirium] is where the body goes into hyperthermia, generally a temperature of 105 degrees. The individual becomes psychotic, they often rip off their clothes and run out into the street violently and have an adrenaline-like strength and police are called and it takes four or five officers to restrain them. Then once they are restrained, if they don’t receive immediate medical attention they can die.

The drug’s name has several meanings. The word flaca in Spanish means skinny. But flakka is also a Hispanic colloquial word that means a “beautiful, elegant woman who charms all she meets.” It has been reported in other parts of the country, such as Ohio and Houston. Outside of Florida it’s often sold under the street name of “gravel” because it looks like the grainy pebbles or gravel in an aquarium.

Flakka and other cathinone-based drugs are produced in China and sold online to individuals and drug gangs in the US. An investment of a few thousand dollars can make a dealer as much as $75,000. These drugs aren’t always pure, meaning neither the dealer nor the customer actually knows what is in them, or how strong the dose is. Hall said: “We’re referring to these as the guinea pig drugs. Often the dealer might not even know what they’re selling.” In 2013 there were 126 reported deaths due to synthetic cathinones in Florida.

Then on April 10, 2015 the Broward Sheriff’s office were called to the scene of what appears to have been an accidental fatal shooting. A 31 year-old man was on a three-day flakka and molly (MDMA) binge when his friend came over. They added vodka and more molly to the mix. After spending the rest of Friday morning selling heroin, they decided to go to the home of the one man’s sister. When one individual was trying to unload a shotgun, it accidentally fired, ripping through the side of a car and hitting the other man in the face. The shooter is in jail on manslaughter charges and possession of a firearm by a felon.

CBS News in Chicago did a story on April 24, 2015: “Scary new designer drug flakka hits Chicago.” And again, there was a naked man running around southwest Chicago. He had no memory of what he did while on flakka. “I went to jail, and I don’t remember anything until my third day in jail. I was completely out of my mind.” There is a whole new world of mind-altering substances and the problems associated with them out there. I don’t think we have not heard the end of flakka. And as long as there are willing guinea pigs, there are more NPSs to come.

Faith Seeking Understanding

Charles Sigler, D.Phil.

Tag Archives: cathinones

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