Designer Drug Flakka on the Rise: Psychoses, Paranoia, and Aggression on the Increase in Zeeland and West Brabant

Last year, police had to deal with flakka-related incidents an average of three times a day. Podcast NPO Radio 1 Crime Bureau Omroep WNL came with this news, the police confirmed to RTL News. This was especially true in Zeeland and West Brabant; At least 566 incidents were recorded there in 2023. The police do not know why it happens mostly in that region.

Flakka is also known as the “zombie drug” because it can cause delirium arousal. “Then you become somewhat unconscious, but your body is still there,” explained prevention expert Sarah Graman of Jellinek. “Then you start doing very crazy things. People break down, run through windows; they no longer know their own powers.” Other drugs, such as cocaine, can also cause this, but flakka is often associated with it.

Start with a partnership

Sam Fijneman (38) from Breda started using drugs at a young age. First joint, then distance, cocaine and other substances. Eventually she came into contact with GHB, which went well for a while. Until her father died and she completely fell apart. “Then I ended up with someone who used flakka,” she told RTL News. During those years she alternated between periods of being clean and periods of substance use. “I tried almost every drug except a -only needles in my arm, but flakka is the most dangerous drug I’ve ever used.”

It was cheap and easy to get. She first bought through someone who bought it in bulk, but when she found a website where the drug could be legally ordered, she bought it in bulk herself. “It was just like ordering clothes. Ordered today by a certain time, delivered tomorrow.”

Sam hit rock bottom when she moved into assisted living in 2022. “That’s when my flakka habit got really out of control,” she says. She became lonely, hung out with the wrong people and fell into a ‘negative paranoid spiral’. The use of flakka worsened.

The twist came after Christmas Eve 2022. When she sat by her bed to practice, her duvet and later the whole room went up in flames. Flakka is smoked with a pipe, and the lighter that was used caused the fire. An additional problem was that due to her paranoia – caused by flakka – she had blocked the front door and was almost unable to escape from the house.

She was injured and had to stay in the hospital for several days. She stayed clean in the residential center where she later ended up. “After I quit cold turkey, I slept a lot. My body was tired because it was so damaged from using them.”

Sam is still clean today, living in a homeless shelter. She has not used it in sixteen months. “I now sit among the homeless and see so many mirrors around me every day of what I have been like,” she says.

A dangerous drug

In recent years, Sam has lost several people to the drug. For example, she lived for a while with “a very sweet, caring, innocent young man.” The boy was calm, sweet and ‘really didn’t do anything wrong’. “He’s almost psychotic here every day. He’s completely lost,” said Sam. “There’s almost nothing left of it.”

She herself has done things because of her habit that she deeply regrets. “That fire in my house was the worst trauma. I’ll never forget that,” she says. “I made an 85-year-old woman temporarily homeless on Christmas Eve because I used me. I still blame myself for that.”

So she encourages drug users to seek help if they feel things are getting out of hand. “You can ask for help. Something can be done. You can help yourself if you really want to.”

The police emphasize that flakka is currently seen as a local problem, as most reports are made in West Brabant and Limburg. “For now, there is no concern that it could become a national problem.”

Flakka, what is that?

Flakka is a generic name for several different substances from the cathinones category. Cathinones are stimulants. It is a designer drug, which means that the molecules varies by type of flakka. In this way, manufacturers can overcome the ban on the drug by slightly changing the molecular composition.

The drug produces a relatively short, intense peak of about an hour or two. At that higher level, the negative effects, such as paranoid behavior, also occur. Using flakka can lead, just like cocaine or other stimulants to excited delirium.

Using Flakka exhausts the body and mind, making the desire to use again very strong. “As soon as it wears off, you become so depressed that you want more,” says addiction expert Alex van Dongen of Novadic-Kentron.