$5 drug that could cost your life
By Police Reporter SAM RICHES
31dec03
IT COSTS as little as $5, is readily available on Adelaide streets and it can be fatal.
Sold as "liquid ecstasy", the drug induces a feeling described by users as similar to being happily drunk but "multiplied a thousand times", but it does, as its street name suggests, cause grievous bodily harm.
Commonly known as G or blue nitro, GHB is a derivative of other street drugs marketed as liquid ecstasy and fantasy.
Depending on the batch and dose, the effects take between 15 and 30 minutes to be felt – or to do its damage.
Gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, uses an easy-to-obtain ingredient commonly used as an industrial solvent that is mixed with other easy-to-source ingredients.
David Caldicott of the Royal Adelaide Hospital says GHB has been responsible for 300 overdoses in the state in the past four years, with most victims coming from the dance, rave and nightclub scene.
"It is phenomenally cheap, easy to make and easy to acquire," he said yesterday.
With GHB overdoses in Sydney at epidemic proportions – 130 overdoses this year – RAH staff have seen a "steadily increasing incidence" of the drug here in Adelaide.
"NSW is seeing a real surge of this drug and here we're seeing that trickle through with 5 to 10 overdose cases in the past two months," Dr Caldicott said.
Sold predominantly in liquid form – often in small vials such as perfume sample bottles – it is often poured in alcoholic drinks to mask the bitter taste.
While warnings are abundant of the dangers of spiked drinks, Dr Caldicott says what is more worrying is that people appear to be willingly taking the drug as opposed to its being given to them.
Working with hospitals in Sydney, Adelaide doctors are using an experimental treatment to combat the drug which otherwise has no known antidote.
"Half the problem though is that we just don't know what we are dealing with when someone comes in unconscious," Dr Caldicott said.
"There's a very fine line between getting a kick and kicking off your life."
Of the Sydney epidemic, 76 per cent of patients were comatose when they arrived at hospital and many were placed on life support ventilators.
"If people have to use pills, if they're not sure about the origin they should only take half a pill instead of eight," Dr Caldicott said.
In Adelaide, people tended to take 10 pills rather than half a pill thinking they will feel much better, Dr Caldicott said.
"It's far better to have a few glasses of champagne than a pill you don't know anything about where it came from," he said.
Linky
By Police Reporter SAM RICHES
31dec03
IT COSTS as little as $5, is readily available on Adelaide streets and it can be fatal.
Sold as "liquid ecstasy", the drug induces a feeling described by users as similar to being happily drunk but "multiplied a thousand times", but it does, as its street name suggests, cause grievous bodily harm.
Commonly known as G or blue nitro, GHB is a derivative of other street drugs marketed as liquid ecstasy and fantasy.
Depending on the batch and dose, the effects take between 15 and 30 minutes to be felt – or to do its damage.
Gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, uses an easy-to-obtain ingredient commonly used as an industrial solvent that is mixed with other easy-to-source ingredients.
David Caldicott of the Royal Adelaide Hospital says GHB has been responsible for 300 overdoses in the state in the past four years, with most victims coming from the dance, rave and nightclub scene.
"It is phenomenally cheap, easy to make and easy to acquire," he said yesterday.
With GHB overdoses in Sydney at epidemic proportions – 130 overdoses this year – RAH staff have seen a "steadily increasing incidence" of the drug here in Adelaide.
"NSW is seeing a real surge of this drug and here we're seeing that trickle through with 5 to 10 overdose cases in the past two months," Dr Caldicott said.
Sold predominantly in liquid form – often in small vials such as perfume sample bottles – it is often poured in alcoholic drinks to mask the bitter taste.
While warnings are abundant of the dangers of spiked drinks, Dr Caldicott says what is more worrying is that people appear to be willingly taking the drug as opposed to its being given to them.
Working with hospitals in Sydney, Adelaide doctors are using an experimental treatment to combat the drug which otherwise has no known antidote.
"Half the problem though is that we just don't know what we are dealing with when someone comes in unconscious," Dr Caldicott said.
"There's a very fine line between getting a kick and kicking off your life."
Of the Sydney epidemic, 76 per cent of patients were comatose when they arrived at hospital and many were placed on life support ventilators.
"If people have to use pills, if they're not sure about the origin they should only take half a pill instead of eight," Dr Caldicott said.
In Adelaide, people tended to take 10 pills rather than half a pill thinking they will feel much better, Dr Caldicott said.
"It's far better to have a few glasses of champagne than a pill you don't know anything about where it came from," he said.
Linky
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
