BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — A new grand jury report says statewide changes are needed to prevent flakka-related deaths in central Florida after 61 people died in Broward County over the span of 15 months.
The grand jury said it wants state law to change to make it more difficult for the drugs to be brought into the United States in the first place.
Bath salts, or flakka, are usually shipped from China.
The compound of the drug keeps changing, which makes it difficult for law enforcement to keep the substance from being sold.
The new report calls for a sweeping ban on all synthetic drugs, which would mean quicker arrests.
9 Investigates uncovered dash camera video from 2015 in which a naked teenager, allegedly under the influence of flakka, can be seen screaming at Melbourne police.
Agents said it's one of only a handful of cases involving the designer drug in central Florida, but the 72-page grand jury report out of Broward County calls for statewide action.
The biggest call for change is at the legislative level, where more than 140 compound variations for flakka, bath salts and K2 have been added to a list of banned substances since 2010.
The 2016 Florida Designer Drug Enforcement Act would ban all classes of synthetic drugs instead of individual compounds.
“A ban would give us state (and) local power to make arrests immediately,” said Lt. Rich Lane of the Orlando Police Department’s drug unit.
The grand jury also recommends that 911 employees be trained in recognizing what's called the "excited delirium" that flakka users experience, helping them dispatch the correct number of first responders so no one gets hurt.
“Many of them suffer from delusions, causing them to act in a very violent manner,” Lane said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is pushing the new legislation and supports the findings in the report, which also calls for trafficking penalties to be added to the law.
Cox Media Group
