News: 8/6/2004 - Doctors urged to attend raves

Doctors urged to attend raves
By Rosemary Desmond
June 8, 2004

ALL rave parties should have a doctor on duty to treat people and highlight the risks of party drugs, an emergency medicine expert said today.

This was particularly important for larger parties, Dr David Caldicott, an emergency research fellow at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, said.

"This would be not necessarily just a doctor to treat people but also a doctor to give information."

An on-site medico would help young partygoers think twice before swallowing pills which could be contaminated with other substances, he said.

"We've got to go out there and prove to people that drugs are dangerous and they are not manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, therefore they have many impurities.

"If we as doctors take our jobs seriously, it's up to us to do that.

"It allows us a snapshot and to pick up dangerous drugs before they take hold."

Dr Caldicott will present his research findings to the International Federation of Emergency Medicine conference in Cairns today.

He said the anesthetic ketamine had been found in around one quarter of the drugs taken at one recent Adelaide rave.

Ketamine could not be manufactured in an illegal drug laboratory and was stolen from hospitals and veterinary practices, he said.

A team of 10 doctors from the Royal Adelaide visited the rave to test the drugs brought to the party or sold at the venue.

"What we were doing is interviewing these people in the comfort of their own environment so they felt less threatened and were far more unlikely to give dishonest answers.

"They were absolutely blown away by having a doctor there.

"They were used, at best, to having St John's Ambulance there.

"But what we can do is say: 'This is no b******t - this is really dangerous'."

The study examined drug-taking habits, harm minimisation techniques, and attitudes to pill testing.

"This has been going on with tremendous success in Europe for 15 years, but it's the first time it's happened in Australia," he said.

"We are showing that people who, given the option of protesting, will change their habit if something is found to be odd."

AAP

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