(Originally posted on October 13, 2021.)

In 2010s, people started referring to flakka (aka gravel) and bath salts as ‘zombie drugs.’ This was because of the way these drugs affect users.

This is going to irritate the Living Dead cult. They want the Z-word reserved for the undead. Apologies for that in advance.

The characters of the ELE Series use the word “zombie” as a 21st century vernacular. This term no longer solely refers to the living dead, The Walking Dead, or any George Romero films. R140 “zoms” were originally based on bath salts and flakka users (see videos at the end).

The 101 on flakka from the Addiction Center:

“Flakka is a dangerous Stimulant that causes hyperstimulation, increased strength, and paranoia. In some cases, it causes the user to enter into an excited delirium and have violent episodes.”

Synthetic Cathinones are chemically related to the substance Cathinone, which is found in the Khat plant. Synthetic Cathinones like flakka are part of a group of drugs known as New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). These substances first appeared in the drug market in the mid-2000s. They are designed to mimic other illicit drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD.

Flakka is thought to have started gaining popularity in South Florida. The drug appeared in headlines when a 19-year-old college student stabbed a couple to death. He then started gnawing on the male victim’s face.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says that flakka causes a condition called “excited delirium.” It involves hyperstimulation, hallucinations, increased strength, and paranoia—sound familiar? These symptoms can lead to self-injury and violent aggression or cause users to have a psychotic episode. Flakka also impacts the body, raising body temperature up to 104 degrees (hyperthermia). Users may also experience liver and renal failure. They may suffer from hypertension, narrowing of the blood vessels, and irregular heartbeat. Heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, and even death are possible.

In 2011, Synthetic Cathinones were involved in over 20,000 emergency department visits. The public fear of bath salts began in 2012. This happened when a Miami man stripped naked and ate the face of another man in broad daylight. When police ordered him to stop eating the man’s face, he growled like an animal. The officer was forced to shoot the attacker. It took 4 bullets to finally stop him. This event led people to calling flakka and bath salts “zombie drugs.”

Though this next video is not in English, the video footage is a ‘picture is worth a thousand words.’

“What Are Zombie Drugs?”

When you hear someone talk about “zombie drugs,” they’re usually talking about opioids like fentanyl enhanced with a drug called xylazine (“tranq”). However, there are other drugs often called zombie drugs, including α-PVP (“Flakka”) and desomorphine (“krocodil”).

Tranq

When animal tranquilizers began to be mixed with fentanyl, the ‘living dead’ type zombie began.

Street drug dealers began mixing the horse tranquilizer xylazine into fentanyl to form an adulterated street drug known as “tranq”. Xylazine is a legal drug repurposed for illegal use. It complicates the overdose response. It is a non-opioid sedative. It doesn’t respond to naloxone, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses.

Rhino Tranq

Medetomidine, also an animal tranquilizer, is also mixed with fentanyl and has an even more powerful high than regular tranq.

“Tranq” drugs can cause sores, called flesh eating, initially at the injection site. It can go beyond this into even rotting their muscles and even bones!

The behavior while they are high is eerie. See on YouTube “Shocking video shows zombie-like addicts at ‘ground zero’ of Philadelphia’s ‘tranq’ epidemic“.

Special K

Ketamine, another animal veterinarians medication, is known on the streets as Special K or Vitamin K. It causes hallucinations.

Spice

Spice, aka K2, sometimes called “synthetic marijuana.”

Why are synthetics blowing up all over the place in the States?

The loss of heroin is why.

The usual route of heroin from its growing country, usually Afghanistan, to the USA faced troubles. This caused the drug cartels to seek out different paths.
They began shipping through East Africa. But then discovered there was an untapped market for cheap heroin in that region. The shipments stopped there. This caused a massive shortage of cheap heroin in the States.

A similar situation occurred with cocaine, the raw material of crack.

“Disruptions in the supply of raw or bulk materials are frequently responsible for drug shortages. These shortages are especially problematic when a primary or sole-source supplier of a raw material delays or discontinues production, affecting multiple manufacturers.” —“Drug Shortage Crisis in the United States”, NLM.