poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
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Aus - Devastation of a 'legal high'
Peter Traynor held his son James in his arms for half an hour one morning in January, believing he was dead.
The 20-year-old was unconscious and blue in the face, his eyes had disappeared into the back of his head, his body was sweaty and battered after being found on the bathroom floor of the family's Gunnedah home,
he was choking on his vomit and thrashing around in a psychotic state.
When paramedics arrived, Mr Traynor was in tears as he cradled the limp body of his son. Miraculously, James was rushed to Tamworth Hospital and saved by a team of doctors but what came next left the Traynor family dumbfounded.
The substance that had almost killed their son was something they had never heard of: a $20 packet of ''synthetic cannabis'' from a local video shop.
It is a common reaction among the growing number of families who have been devastated by the effects of ''legal highs'' on their loved ones.
Synthetic drugs are artificially developed to mimic the effects of cannabis, cocaine and methamphetamine.
They are marketed as not for human consumption and have existed in a grey legal area because manufacturers tweak the recipes to circumvent illegal drug classifications.
A new synthetic drug enters the market each week in Europe. In a rush to legislate against their rapid emergence at home, NSW politicians released a suite of recommendations this week aimed at prohibiting the drugs.
The recommendations include banning eight ''families'' of synthetic drugs, making it easier for police to prove a synthetic drug is illegal and allowing the minister for fair trading to issue snap six-month bans on the sale of products.
However, at the heart of any response must be better public education, say drug experts who warn that not even they know much about the emerging trend.
''It's all well and good to put bans into place but unless you actually do that with a proper education campaign, there's little point,'' Paul Dillon, spokesman for the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, said.
''But the great problem is that we can't call it an information campaign because we just don't know much about them.''
Lucy Burns, a senior lecturer within the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said a drug like ecstasy had been around for decades so there was a lot of information, but synthetic drugs were new and complex.
''It's really hard to anticipate what the effects of one substance will be,'' she said. ''Often we won't know it's on the market until there's some horrible repercussion.''
There is no data on the prevalence of synthetic drugs in Australia yet Drugs Squad Commander Nick Bingham said that, anecdotally, they are ''flying off the shelves''.
Tamworth mother Kerry Walsh, 56, was not quite as lucky at the Traynors.
Her only son, whom she did not want to name so as to protect his 10- and seven-year-old children, took his life a week after his 31st birthday in April after becoming addicted to synthetic cannabis.
He had kicked a cannabis habit but turned to the legal and supposedly ''safe'' alternative. It made him erratic and paranoid and he eventually hanged himself at the Maitland factory he had worked at for 11 years.
''The last time I saw him he was right up in my face yelling and screaming. I'd never seen anything like it. He was screaming at his partner to get him some dope,'' Ms Walsh said.
''You don't think that three weeks later you'll get a call at 6.30am to say that he's dead. I've never cried so much in my life, I was just howling. It's the most horrible feeling.''
Like the Traynors, she had never heard of synthetic drugs and started trawling forums, eventually compiling a dossier and working up the courage to present it to the tobacconist who sold her son synthetic cannabis.
The inquiry has recommended banning eight ''families'' of synthetic drugs to capture almost all cannabis products.
However, it stopped short of following the lead of New Zealand, where the onus of proof has been flipped and shopkeepers must prove a product's legality in order to sell it.
''To me the shopkeepers are no better than pushers on the street,'' Ms Walsh said. ''I wonder if they've ever thought that it could have been their best friend or their son.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/angu...legal-highs-20130531-2nh3m.html#ixzz2V76xZlOz
Peter Traynor held his son James in his arms for half an hour one morning in January, believing he was dead.
The 20-year-old was unconscious and blue in the face, his eyes had disappeared into the back of his head, his body was sweaty and battered after being found on the bathroom floor of the family's Gunnedah home,
he was choking on his vomit and thrashing around in a psychotic state.
When paramedics arrived, Mr Traynor was in tears as he cradled the limp body of his son. Miraculously, James was rushed to Tamworth Hospital and saved by a team of doctors but what came next left the Traynor family dumbfounded.
The substance that had almost killed their son was something they had never heard of: a $20 packet of ''synthetic cannabis'' from a local video shop.
It is a common reaction among the growing number of families who have been devastated by the effects of ''legal highs'' on their loved ones.
Synthetic drugs are artificially developed to mimic the effects of cannabis, cocaine and methamphetamine.
They are marketed as not for human consumption and have existed in a grey legal area because manufacturers tweak the recipes to circumvent illegal drug classifications.
A new synthetic drug enters the market each week in Europe. In a rush to legislate against their rapid emergence at home, NSW politicians released a suite of recommendations this week aimed at prohibiting the drugs.
The recommendations include banning eight ''families'' of synthetic drugs, making it easier for police to prove a synthetic drug is illegal and allowing the minister for fair trading to issue snap six-month bans on the sale of products.
However, at the heart of any response must be better public education, say drug experts who warn that not even they know much about the emerging trend.
''It's all well and good to put bans into place but unless you actually do that with a proper education campaign, there's little point,'' Paul Dillon, spokesman for the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, said.
''But the great problem is that we can't call it an information campaign because we just don't know much about them.''
Lucy Burns, a senior lecturer within the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said a drug like ecstasy had been around for decades so there was a lot of information, but synthetic drugs were new and complex.
''It's really hard to anticipate what the effects of one substance will be,'' she said. ''Often we won't know it's on the market until there's some horrible repercussion.''
There is no data on the prevalence of synthetic drugs in Australia yet Drugs Squad Commander Nick Bingham said that, anecdotally, they are ''flying off the shelves''.
Tamworth mother Kerry Walsh, 56, was not quite as lucky at the Traynors.
Her only son, whom she did not want to name so as to protect his 10- and seven-year-old children, took his life a week after his 31st birthday in April after becoming addicted to synthetic cannabis.
He had kicked a cannabis habit but turned to the legal and supposedly ''safe'' alternative. It made him erratic and paranoid and he eventually hanged himself at the Maitland factory he had worked at for 11 years.
''The last time I saw him he was right up in my face yelling and screaming. I'd never seen anything like it. He was screaming at his partner to get him some dope,'' Ms Walsh said.
''You don't think that three weeks later you'll get a call at 6.30am to say that he's dead. I've never cried so much in my life, I was just howling. It's the most horrible feeling.''
Like the Traynors, she had never heard of synthetic drugs and started trawling forums, eventually compiling a dossier and working up the courage to present it to the tobacconist who sold her son synthetic cannabis.
The inquiry has recommended banning eight ''families'' of synthetic drugs to capture almost all cannabis products.
However, it stopped short of following the lead of New Zealand, where the onus of proof has been flipped and shopkeepers must prove a product's legality in order to sell it.
''To me the shopkeepers are no better than pushers on the street,'' Ms Walsh said. ''I wonder if they've ever thought that it could have been their best friend or their son.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/angu...legal-highs-20130531-2nh3m.html#ixzz2V76xZlOz