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Schoolies urged to say no to drugs by grieving mother
By Greg Stolz
November 17, 2009 12:00am
THE mother of a Gold Coast teenager who died from an ecstasy overdose has pleaded with youngsters not to experiment with drugs at Schoolies Week.
"Please, just don't do it," Liz Vaina, mother of Blair Elizabeth Vaina, said yesterday.
"I don't want to see it happen again. I don't want any other families to go through what we've been through. Schoolies could easily be another tragedy waiting to happen."
Mrs Vaina made her heartfelt plea as police warned drug sniffer dogs could be unleashed at Schoolies for the first time. They also vowed to use a network of more than 50 surveillance cameras in Surfers Paradise to snare would-be drug dealers.
Mrs Vaina's appeal also came amid reports a new internet-order designer drug craze was sweeping youth culture.
Drug experts are alarmed by the emergence of mystery drug mephedrone – known on the street as MM-Cat, plant food, meow and 4-MMC – and billed as a cross between cocaine and ecstasy.
The so-called "legal" drug can be bought over the internet and there are fears it could appear on the streets of Surfers Paradise during Schoolies.
Mrs Vaina, whose daughter died in August 2007 after taking ecstasy with friends, urged schoolies to ignore peer pressure to experiment with drugs.
"Blair had people pushing her to get high . . . the pressure can be enormous," she said.
"But young people just have to say 'no'. Use your own mind, think, don't listen to others. It's not worth the risk."
Mrs Vaina said she and her son Travis had researched ecstasy in detail since Blair's death and young people needed to know the facts.
She said ecstasy could easily contain "toxic poisons" such as paramethoxamphetamine (PMA) which she believed killed her daughter. It also encouraged users to take more and more by depleting seratonin, the endorphin that helps control moods, increasing the risk of death.
Gold Coast police Superintendent Jim Keogh said there was no evidence of mephedrone on the Gold Coast yet, but a Cairns importer had recently been charged and he conceded there was a risk the drug could find its way to southeast Queensland.
Undercover police will roam Surfers Paradise during Schoolies looking for drug dealers and other troublemakers and Supt Keogh would not rule out bringing in drug sniffer dogs.
He also warned a network of more than 50 surveillance cameras would be trained on potential drug dealers.
"We'll be watching intently for anything that we perceive to be drug dealing," he said. "We will be very vigilant."
Cary Strong, special operations co-ordinator with the Queensland Ambulance Service, said paramedics often had difficulty telling whether schoolies were affected by drugs because they were so drunk.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,26359461-3102,00.html?from=public_rss