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Unusual new street drugs like Flakka and Xylazine appear in news headlines a few times a year, generating a great deal of buzz and worry. For a while, they seem like a mystery. Where did they come from? What are they exactly? What are the dangers? This page is designed to cut through the myths and misinformation about many of the most common new street drugs so you can become better informed about what each of them is and what real risks they present.
What Are the New Street Drugs?
This category refers to the illegal (or soon to be illegal) intoxicating drugs that fall outside of the common substances of abuse that have been around for decades if not hundreds or thousands of years. They do not include drugs like heroin, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine or marijuana, for example. The list of drugs in this category is long and it keeps growing. The reasons why drugs like this continue to surface vary. Some are made to evade controlled substance laws (for a while anyway). Others are made by street drug dealers to dilute their product and make more money.
There are so many new street drugs and nicknames for them that it’s nearly impossible to make a complete and up-to-date one that covers them all. But we’ve assembled a list of current and emerging street drugs in this category. We will update this list periodically to ensure its relevance.
Some of the unusual new street drugs of concern include:
- Cheese (heroin and diphenhydramine)
- Flakka (alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone, alpha-PVP)
- Bath salts (synthetic cathinone mixtures)
- Monkey Dust (synthetic cathinone mixtures)
- Khat (a plant containing cathinones)
- Tranq (xylazine, usually when mixed with fentanyl)
- Xylazine (veterinary sedative)
- Lean (promethazine and codeine)
- Robo (dextromethorphan/DXM)
What is Cheese Heroin or ‘Cheese’?
A mixture of heroin and crushed over-the-counter cold medication tablets containing the antihistamine diphenhydramine. Called cheese due to the parmesan cheese-like consistency of the mixture, it is generally cheaper than purer forms of heroin or heroin mixed with fentanyl.
It’s believed that “cheese” heroin evolved in either the Northeastern U.S. or perhaps Pennsylvania. Cheese heroin doesn’t have any especially unusual effects that differentiate it from ordinary heroin. It tends to be less expensive than purer, more potent forms and was likely developed as an effort by street-level dealers trying to market a lower-grade product.
About Cathinones: Flakka, Bath Salts, Monkey Dust and Khat
Cathinones are a class of stimulant drugs. Traditionally found in the khat plant, used for centuries in the Middle East. Heavy khat users are known for being inexhaustible and sometimes aggressive. More recently though, a new class of synthetic cathinones are being produced and they have much more powerful effects than the natural variety. These synthetic cathinones are found in street drugs like bath salts, flakka and monkey dust.
Synthetic cathinone-containing substances have powerful stimulant effects. Flakka is made with a particularly strong synthetic cathinone known as alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone or alpha-PVP. Similar to the street drugs known as “bath salts” or monkey dust, but with even more potential danger due to its potency. Its appearance is also similar to bath salts, looking something like crushed rock salt, it is usually white or pinkish-white and crystalline.
Bath salts and flakka users often become hyper-energetic and aggressive. They may experience hallucinations or psychosis at higher doses. Flakka users sometimes feel invincible, which can make them dangerous. Flakka has appeared in the news, most often due to the bizarre behavior exhibited by its users.
What Are Tranq and Xylazine?
Xylazine and the combination of Xylazine and fentanyl commonly known as tranq is particularly worrying to health officials and law enforcement for a number of reasons. Its emergence is relatively recent. Less than 10 years ago, Xylazine was almost unheard of in the U.S. The concerns are first, that Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer that was never approved for human use due to its potency and unpredictable nature in human subjects.
Another concern about tranq and xylazine is that it has an especially dangerous necrotizing effect on human tissue in IV users. That is, it kills human tissue at injection sites which often leads to gangrene and infection.
Finally, xylazine is a powerful sedative and when it is combined with fentanyl to make tranq, it can create a very high risk of overdose and respiratory arrest. Even worse, xylazine is not an opioid. This means a person who has overdosed on tranq will not respond to NARCAN the same way a person who has used only an opioid like heroin or fentanyl alone with. NARCAN can do nothing to reverse Xylazine overdose sadly.
Promethazine and Codeine Syrups (AKA Lean, Sizzurp)
This concoction of prescription cough syrups containing promethazine and codeine, mixed with a soft drink (usually Sprite) and hard candies is commonly known as lean. It goes by a number of other names though, including purp, purple drank, and sizzurp. No one is entirely certain where it originated, but it may have evolved from Houston Blues musicians combining Robitussin cough syrup with beer.
Others say New Orleans was the birthplace of lean. What we do know is that its appearance in rap lyrics beginning in the late 1990s helped create a mystique that spread its use across the country. Lean is particularly dangerous because both promethazine and codeine act as CNS depressants. When lean is combined with other CNS depressants, like alcohol, fentanyl or benzodiazepines it can lead to unpredictable compound effects and cause respiratory arrest.
What is Robo and Robo-Tripping?
Robo is a slang term for the drug dextromethorphan or DXM. Cough syrups containing the drug, like some varieties of Robitussin, are sold over the counter. Using the drug is sometimes called robotripping. Some other slang terms for DXM include CCC, Triple C, Skittles, and Poor Man’s PCP. DXM is the dextro isomer of levomethorphan, a semisynthetic morphine derivative.
It isn’t an opioid technically because it does not act on opioid receptors. However, at high doses, it has similar effects to PCP and ketamine. These effects include hallucinations, altered perception of time and space, hyper-excitability, loss of motor coordination, and slurred speech. Overdose deaths are rare, but injuries, arrests, and psychiatric incidents due to DXM abuse are not.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About New Street Drugs
What is the difference between flakka and bath salts?
Flakka is similar to the street drugs known as bath salts in both appearance and composition. The name bath salts applies to any of a number of synthetic cathinone compounds. Flakka refers specifically to the synthetic synthetic cathinone alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone or alpha-PVP. Alpha-PVP is one of the most powerful synthetic cathinones. This makes flakka potentially even more dangerous than bath salts.
Are tranq and xylazine the same thing?
The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Most of the xylazine seized in drug busts is mixed with fentanyl. Most people seem to use the term tranq to refer to a mixture of fentanyl and xylazine. However, sometimes tranq is used to refer to xylazine alone.
Is Lean Addictive?
Lean contains codeine, which is an addictive opioid. The other active ingredient in lean, promethazine is not a controlled substance and does not create the same type of physical withdrawal symptoms that opioids do when users suddenly cease their use. That said, lean has a very high potential for abuse and many users have ended up in emergency rooms due to adverse effects.
Where Do These New Street Drugs Come From?
Some are manufactured by the same organized crime enterprises that traffic in other illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine. Some are made by street-level drug dealers looking to extend their supplies and increase profits and sometimes odd street drug concoctions, like lean, are made by the users themselves. But the things that they all have in common is that they are often even more dangerous than their more conventional street drug counterparts, users are often uninformed or under-informed about them
Diamond Recovery is Raising Awareness About Recovery
At Diamond Recovery we are on a mission to inform people about addiction and raise awareness about options for treatment and recovery. We also connect people with addiction and their loved ones directly to professional help and substance use disorder treatment.
If you or someone you love could benefit from treatment for a substance use disorder or you just have questions about Diamond Recovery and what we do, please give us a call at (844) 909-2525.
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