NSW teenager dies after taking LSD

[mister]

Teenager Nick Mitchell's LSD overdose - death, delusions and despair

LIKE a carefree teenager, Nick Mitchell spent Saturday morning skateboarding and hanging out with his younger brother. Life was good for the Central Coast boy.

Ten hours later the academically gifted teen was dead after a nightmare chain of events sparked by taking an illegal and dangerous drug.

Nick, 15, died after he and a mate experimented with a substance police believe to be LSD.

The drug caused respiratory problems and heart complications for Nick, who could not be revived after his 11-year-old brother found him unconscious in his bedroom.

It had a different effect on his friend, also 15, who, in a psychotic state, ran naked into traffic on a busy road and was hit by a car, leaving him with serious injuries. He is in hospital.

Nick's parents Matthew and Sharon were yesterday struggling with the shock of their son's tragic death and how the popular teen came to be in possession of such a deadly substance.

The two mates had been hanging out together in Nick's granny flat-style bedroom, at the rear of the family's waterfront home in Tascott.

It was during the heatwave on Saturday, and neighbours said they saw the pair wander between the flat and a backyard pool, looking happy and giving no hint of the tragedy which was about to unfold.

About 8.30pm Mrs Mitchell received a frantic call at work from her youngest son to say Nick was not breathing. He'd found his brother slumped on the floor of the bedroom, which police later discovered had been "smashed up".

A neighbour raced over to help and performed CPR on the dying boy, while he waited for paramedics.

In a cruel twist, paramedics racing to the Mitchells' home came across an accident just around the corner where Nick's friend had been hit by a car.

A second ambulance got to Nick and rushed him to Gosford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Head of the NSW Police drug squad Detective Superintendent Nick Bingham said the teenager's death was an absolute tragedy and should pose as a stark warning about the dangers of any drugs.

"LSD, if that's what it was, is an insidious drug. It's got a smiley face on it and looks harmless, but it kills," Supt Bingham said.

Paul Dillon from Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia warned that LSD, the once fashionable drug of the 1960s, was having a resurgence in popularity because it is cheap, its effects last much longer than ecstasy and it is not detectable by sniffer dogs: "Some people think LSD went out with the hippie era and isn't around any more, which couldn't be further from the truth."

Nick's death follows that of Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti, who took LSD on the night he was tasered and died during a police chase through Sydney in March.

Detectives fear there could be a toxic batch of the drug circulating, after numerous other incidents were reported where people had suffered serious side effects. Police are awaiting toxicology results, but said evidence found in the boy's bedroom suggested it was likely LSD had been consumed.

Friends of Nick said he was a "smart and popular" boy who had formed a skateboarding club in the Gosford area where teenagers could hang out and share their love of the sport.

On Facebook they lamented a life cut so tragically short.

"Can't believe someone so smart, young and talented could be taken away," Nathan James wrote.

At Gosford High, where Nick was a Year 9 student, counselling was offered to his classmates who were struggling to deal with the senseless death. A private funeral service for Nick will be held next week

and this from Tony Wood

EVERY time I hear of another teenager losing their life to drugs, it breaks my heart.

Our deepest sympathy goes to Nick Mitchell's family, we know their pain all too well.

The drug laws in this country, and in NSW, are a complete joke.

They are desperately bad and need to be changed - or we will keep losing young lives to these despicable substances.

We need compliance and enforcement. Police need to arrest kids possessing drugs, as well as those using them.

But the sad reality is that we just don't have the police manpower to do this.

It's truly heartbreaking that, despite the warnings out there about drugs, young people still experiment with them.

I don't know what it will take for them to heed the warnings, and I honestly don't know what we do to stop it.

We need a government that's committed to stamping out drugs, but the problem is that they're not interested in targeting drugs because drug users don't vote.

In the meantime, I think the best way young people will learn the dangers of drugs is by hearing from people who have lost a child, a brother or sister, through drug use.

My wife Angie spent many years going around schools and talking to kids about our experience of losing Anna.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't talk for the first three years, because I couldn't stop crying.

You can write as many books as you want, or hand out thousands of pamphlets, but if you have the courage as a parent who has been through the tragedy to talk about what it's like to lose your child to drugs, people will listen.

TONY WOOD IS THE FATHER OF TEENAGER ANNA WOOD WHO DIED AFTER TAKING ECSTASY 17 YEARS AGO

 

[mister]

We need a government that's committed to stamping out drugs, but the problem is that they're not interested in targeting drugs because drug users don't vote

Although I feel for Tony Wood losing a daughter, I cant stand the way his bitterness gets in the way of facts. I take drugs AND I vote! just like 99% of the people I know do.

We need compliance and enforcement. Police need to arrest kids possessing drugs, as well as those using them.

and then he says

It's truly heartbreaking that, despite the warnings out there about drugs, young people still experiment with them

So he admits that kids will experiment with drugs regardless, but at the same time he wants to arrest them anyway?

 

[Verybuffed]

Thanks for that quality post mister.

So the cops admit that their may be a dangerous batch out there that may have just killed someone and yet they don't issue a media release with the details of the product. I can understand that they may want to catch the dealers but surely HR comes first in this situation?

Saying it has a smiley face on it is a bit general. How about colour, delivery device, suspected contents etc.

Screw all these scumbags who are selling dirty RC's as other other substances.

 

[Busty St Clare]

"LSD, if that's what it was, is an insidious drug. It's got a smiley face on it and looks harmless, but it kills," Supt Bingham said.

If it was lsd he would have had to have held his breath until he passed out to have cardiac and respiratory problems. LSD isn't for everybody, especially young kids but I have never experienced any one who ended up in hospital (well, except the psych ward) from the direct effects of the drug. Running into traffic or punching out windows is far more common but so is thinking there are monsters under your bed. I wish Supt Bingham would pepper spray those bastards.

My money would be on a completely different compound if he did die from a heart attack.

 

[Oldred3s]

I'm sorry to the people that have lost children to drugs . Really I am but there is no need to wish harsh penalties on people that choose to do them. Harsh penalties should be bestowed upon the people that sell dodgy chemicals under the guise of a safer one. Mr wood has a Blind outlook on the subject. How is punishing someone for ones own actions such as to use a substance going to benefit them?
Thanks for posting this mister. Police should be getting
Inboard with harm Reduction, we should have media releases of bad batches of drugs, after all the users aren't the criminals. The users are just people like anyone else that enjoys a good time just in a different sense than others. The people that cook and press or lay bad drugs that have no conclusive research on the effects are the bad people along with the people that sell these unstable chemicals. I can guarantee that unless that kid had allergies to lysergic acids or it wasn't LSD.
Kids that young shouldn't be using these kinds of substances anyway but that is just my
Opinion. Such a shame but drug users shouldn't be made out to be such criminals as parts of the report suggests. Saying that he was smart and gifted and what not just proves its not just derro scumbags that use drugs, it's all different types of people.

 

[Verybuffed]

Police should be getting
Inboard with harm Reduction.

They are now dude. They are just starting to work it out.

Portugal and Sweden have led the way and the world is listening. Even the Mexican President has just said that maybe the drug war is a bad thing.

Further to that with the full legalisation of Cannabis now in effect in Colorado and Washington in the U.S. we are going to being some big changes worldwide.

Hopefully we are remembered as some of the people who helped make it happen.

 

[J.Wallace]

The article title is "Teenager dies after taking LSD" but then they proceed to say the kid died after taking what was believed to be LSD. This kind of bullshit journalism pisses me off. Don't say he died of LSD in the article title when it hasn't been confirmed! Not to mention, LSD doesn't kill unless in very high doses, which is difficult enough to obtain, especially for a teenager. I guarantee it was an RC, most likely a 25-nbome substance.

 

[Busty St Clare]

I don't see such a problem suggesting this was lsd, It may not be but it is being passed off as such.It is obvious for experienced users that it is unlikely to be acid, but if it is being passed of as lsd then it is better to publicized it as such and anyone who tries to purchase any lsd will be wary. Are they saying it was a smilie face? A detailed description of dodgy tabs is far easier for the public to identify as bunk than a nondescript powder.

 

[ayjay]

^agreed - but I'm not holding my breath for mainstream media to take a harm reduction approach. I don't even know if the substance taken (blotter? tablet?) had a smiley face on it - it could just as easily be a throwaway line from a copper who knows nothing about drugs and conflates ecstasy imagery with other substances. The article states that the police think it was LSD, and then talks about how dangerous LSD is. Looks like a combination of police ignorance and poor journalism. And Paul Dillon again adds little of value to the discussion - perhaps he had more to say that didn't make it into print. I feel sorry for Tony and Angie Wood but they really are clueless

 

[J.Wallace]

I don't see such a problem suggesting this was lsd, It may not be but it is being passed off as such.It is obvious for experienced users that it is unlikely to be acid, but if it is being passed of as lsd then it is better to publicized it as such and anyone who tries to purchase any lsd will be wary. Are they saying it was a smilie face? A detailed description of dodgy tabs is far easier for the public to identify as bunk than a nondescript powder.

I see it as a huge problem. The average person doesn't even know RC's exist for the most part. 25i-nbome would be completely foreign to them. Everyone of course has heard of LSD. So in my eyes, when the average person scans over this article, the general idea they take away is "Damn, LSD is dangerous and can kill!" when really, any drug is dangerous and can kill meanwhile LSD is one of the more safer chemicals you can ingest as far as dangers of a fatal overdose. In my mind, it's skewing the truth to make LSD-25 appear more deadly than it really is. Perhaps this is not their original intention but it's certainly what people will take away from it. Spreading ignorance is always a problem in my eyes.

Of course I do agree that it can be good in a sense in that it will make the average person more wary of ingesting a chemical they are being told is "LSD", you can never be too careful, but still...I'd rather people know the truth as oppose to blatantly believing "LSD is deadly!".

 

[poledriver]

link to the article - http://www.news.com.au/national/tee...ions-and-despair/story-fndo4bst-1226530792737

And link to the Tony wood article -

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ild-to-drug-evil/story-e6freuy9-1226530790430

 

[TangerinO]

The article title is "Teenager dies after taking LSD" but then they proceed to say the kid died after taking what was believed to be LSD. This kind of bullshit journalism pisses me off. Don't say he died of LSD in the article title when it hasn't been confirmed! Not to mention, LSD doesn't kill unless in very high doses, which is difficult enough to obtain, especially for a teenager. I guarantee it was an RC, most likely a 25-nbome substance.

^THIS!

Fuck this absolute bullshit. The god damn CIA did all sorts of ridiculous experiments with LSD dosing young children, other agents, severely psychotic people and the list goes on and there wasn't one recorded death from ANY of these experiments, so even with some basic research this journalist would have been able to see that the claim in the title is RIDICULOUS.

It may not be a big deal to some people, but all I see is a journalist who apparently can't do his basic research, and is literally spreading politically fueled nonfactual LSD propaganda to the masses, when the article SHOULD be focusing on the ongoing problem of RC's being sold as other drugs, thanks to the market atmosphere created by prohibition and the fact that this is KILLING PEOPLE, like it did this kid, but hey that's only if you happen to believe that the media has a moral obligation not to muddy an issue, and to present clearly and factually.

Add this to the list of lives cut short because the Government want to pretend that people don't and won't use drugs and that prohibition works.

Screw Tony Woods as well. His daughter made the decision to eat the ecstasy and she could have made an informed one if it weren't for people like him.

 

[drplatypus]

It's terrible that another person has died, from whatever the drug, but it doesn't sound like LSD. This sort of mis-attribution is not benign. It misdirects people's attention to LSD, which although has killed people through their erratic behaviour while under the influence, has almost never killed anyone by direct poisoning (I'm aware of one case in the entire global literature). This in turn means that the real culprit is not pursued with the vigour needed...

I'm wondering about something like DOM, or a tryptamine- something with cardiovascular effect (especially if the patient was already on medication).

For the lurking journos, not everything on a blotter is LSD!

 

[nige1492]

It may not be a big deal to some people, but all I see is a journalist who apparently can't do his basic research, and is literally spreading politically fueled nonfactual LSD propaganda to the masses, when the article SHOULD be focusing on the ongoing problem of RC's being sold as other drugs, thanks to the market atmosphere created by prohibition and the fact that this is KILLING PEOPLE, like it did this kid, but hey that's only if you happen to believe that the media has a moral obligation not to muddy an issue, and to present clearly and factually.

I just have to agree with the above. I fear the story also has something to do with the politics of trying to somehow excuse the alleged 'thugs' (policepersons) who killed the poor Brazilian guy while having a similar 'trip'.

 

[cassandragemini]

I can't believe how illogical everyone gets when it comes to the subject of drugs. Pretty much every other facet of law, policy and government uses factual, evidence based research to base it's arguments on, the facts are used as a base from which discussion, from whatever angle, expands on to aid sensible and logical decision making. When it comes to drugs the wealth of research out there on the social, health, financial and ethical consequences of drug use is deliberately ignored in favour of irrational arguments based on the morality of drug use. Whether something is moral or not is subjective, its still important to consider morality but to alomst entirely base really important policies that effect everybody in our society to some degree on how just one part of society feels morally about drug use is frustratingly unreasonable. Scientific, factual evidence based research should be the backbone of not just governmental but personal debate and decision making, it would be nice if there were measures in place at the governmental level to ensure this is the case so one group of people aren't able to force their opinions on another.

I feel for this kids family and for the guy who lost his daughter to hyponatremia (not overdose), losing anyone you love in any way is tough but just because they happened to die directly or indirectly from drugs doesn't mean that drugs are necessarily bad. People die from accidents playing footy, people die from all risk taking activities, it doesn't mean that activity itself is wrong. The thing I think this tony guy is missing is that if harm reduction strategies were able to be employed with drug use his daughter might not have died like she did. Kids are still going to take pills, sneak into clubs and do silly things like drink to much water, punishing them and denying them the education and resources to know how to avoid doing silly things is in my opinion totally counterproductive and has been proven not to work. I can understand he's probably very hurt and is trying to rationalise her death somehow but the ideas he's pushing could very well cause someone else's kid to end up in the same position because they didn't have access to safe, clean ecstasy, education and information on how to use it properly and what to do in the event of something going wrong. In a perfect world young people wouldn't take drugs and the people who do take drugs would take them sensibly and responsibly (or not at all) but this isn't a perfect world, perfect ideals like abstinence don't work, prohibition doesn't work, trying to convince everybody to come over to your way of thinking when your argument is fundamentally irrational doesnt work and a 'one size fits all' approach to any situation doesnt work, we need to look at the reality of the situation and find what things do work and do those things or this shit is just going to keep on happening.

 

[TangerinO]

I can't believe how illogical everyone gets when it comes to the subject of drugs. Pretty much every other facet of law, policy and government uses factual, evidence based research to base it's arguments on, the facts are used as a base from which discussion, from whatever angle, expands on to aid sensible and logical decision making. When it comes to drugs the wealth of research out there on the social, health, financial and ethical consequences of drug use is deliberately ignored in favour of irrational arguments based on the morality of drug use. Whether something is moral or not is subjective, its still important to consider morality but to alomst entirely base really important policies that effect everybody in our society to some degree on how just one part of society feels morally about drug use is frustratingly unreasonable. Scientific, factual evidence based research should be the backbone of not just governmental but personal debate and decision making, it would be nice if there were measures in place at the governmental level to ensure this is the case so one group of people aren't able to force their opinions on another.

I feel for this kids family and for the guy who lost his daughter to hyponatremia (not overdose), losing anyone you love in any way is tough but just because they happened to die directly or indirectly from drugs doesn't mean that drugs are necessarily bad. People die from accidents playing footy, people die from all risk taking activities, it doesn't mean that activity itself is wrong. The thing I think this tony guy is missing is that if harm reduction strategies were able to be employed with drug use his daughter might not have died like she did. Kids are still going to take pills, sneak into clubs and do silly things like drink to much water, punishing them and denying them the education and resources to know how to avoid doing silly things is in my opinion totally counterproductive and has been proven not to work. I can understand he's probably very hurt and is trying to rationalise her death somehow but the ideas he's pushing could very well cause someone else's kid to end up in the same position because they didn't have access to safe, clean ecstasy, education and information on how to use it properly and what to do in the event of something going wrong. In a perfect world young people wouldn't take drugs and the people who do take drugs would take them sensibly and responsibly (or not at all) but this isn't a perfect world, perfect ideals like abstinence don't work, prohibition doesn't work, trying to convince everybody to come over to your way of thinking when your argument is fundamentally irrational doesnt work and a 'one size fits all' approach to any situation doesnt work, we need to look at the reality of the situation and find what things do work and do those things or this shit is just going to keep on happening.

^ While I agree with your last paragraph, in all fairness it's been 17 years since his daughter died. I understand nothing ever fills that hole, but at the same time he's been a well known anti-drugs, pro-flawed logic media whore since she did die. Her death just so happened to be a well publicized case and all of a sudden this guys the lead authority how drugs affect families?

I can't stand this guy, I'll tell you how drugs don't normally affect families, they don't normally lead a family member of a victim to a successful political career playing puppet in the mainstream media for the same emotional shit stirring they've been replacing real journalism with for years, especially on the subject of drugs. It's all political slime.

 

[drplatypus]

If I was NSW police representative, and smarting from the recently coronial commentary on the death of Roberto Laudisio Curtis-

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...tis-taser-death/story-fndo28a5-1226516948232-
I think I'd be very supportive of any media reporting, however inaccurate, misrepresenting the nature of any danger associated with LSD use... It might help mitigate the degree of outstanding compensation due to the Curtis family...

 

[Dave82]

I'm sick of hearing about what Tony Woods has to say every time there is a drug related death in the media. His daughter died from water intoxication not MDMA had she been better informed about the drug its very likely she would still be here today!

On the news just now the report actually said it was a LSD type drug. So was this a research chem or LSD?

If it's a research chem taken on the belief that it was LSD, it's further proof the current drug laws are not working.

 

[footscrazy]

If I was NSW police representative, and smarting from the recently coronial commentary on the death of Roberto Laudisio Curtis-

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...tis-taser-death/story-fndo28a5-1226516948232-
I think I'd be very supportive of any media reporting, however inaccurate, misrepresenting the nature of any danger associated with LSD use... It might help mitigate the degree of outstanding compensation due to the Curtis family...

It's a good point, as unfortunate as that is...the fact they mentioned his death in a story about an 'lsd' death stood out to me too. I think it's so low they'd implicate his death was due to lsd in that way, when in fact it was due to police brutality.

 

[Busty St Clare]

On the news just now the report actually said it was a LSD type drug. So was this a research chem or LSD?

If it's a research chem taken on the belief that it was LSD, it's further proof the current drug laws are not working.

I think anyone who has taken high doses of lsd would find it hard to believe it would cause respiratory and cardiac problems, unless it was an anxiety induced asthma attack or something equally out of left field. The mate who ran into traffic is more common.