According to Sun Sentinel, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) statistics show that crime labs have analyzed 477 cases of flakka from Broward County in 2014. There was no other county that came close, Chicago’s Cook County had the second highest amount of flakka-related cases, with 212. Broward’s rate of flakka-related cases outweighed all other major counties, with a population of about 1.8 million, Broward had a rate of 27 cases per 100,000 residents.
Experts are fairly puzzled as to why the drug has gained so much popularity in Broward County, while no one has an accurate answer, local experts suggest the crackdown on pill mills have left drug users with a void to be filled by the next drug. From 2007 to 2010, Broward County was the nation’s capital for oxycodone sales. According to the DEA, doctors wrote prescriptions from storefront clinics, distributing over 9 million oxycodone tablets in a six month time period. The state legislation cracking down on the prescription pill trade and a flood of DEA raids on pain clinics help put an end to the problem.
However, the mid-level pushers who purchased their supplies from pill mills and sold them on the street are still present, as well as their addicted customers. It has been suggested that these customers are getting hooked on flakka due to its intense high and low price point. Flakka typically sells on the street for about three to five dollars a hit, making it affordable to almost anyone. Due to the drug being so cheap, drug dealers have expanded the drug’s popularity by targeting Fort Lauderdale’s populous homeless community as their clientele.
Broward County is not the only South Florida county being impacted by flakka. Although Broward County accounted for 55 percent of Florida’s 870 flakka-related cases in 2014, Miami Dade County reported 145 cases which accounts for 17 percent, Orange County had 30 cases and Palm Beach County had 29 cases, each equating to about 3 percent of the state’s flakka-related cases.
“South Florida has a reputation as party people and has always been ground zero for cocaine and oxycodone, now it’s flakka. It seems to be taking root. We hope we can stop this. I would rather South Florida be known for other things than the emergence of drug trends,”
said DEA special agent Kevin Stanfield, a supervisor at the DEA’s headquarters in Weston, according to Sun Sentinel.
Florida state officials are trying their best to get to the root of flakka’s rise to popularity and stop the drug from negatively impacting Florida counties and communities.
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The post DEA Statistic Reveals Broward County Leads The Nation In Flakka Related-Cases appeared first on Harbor Village Florida.
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