Kind of related I guess.. I hate that they post this shit again, as I have already read it ages ago, but I guess it is because it's in the courts now -
'Bath salts' death: Glenn Punch's terrifying end
The last conscious hour of Glenn Punch's life was full of terror.
After injecting the synthetic amphetamine commonly known as "bath salts" in the back of his prime mover, the 44-year-old truckie had stripped off his clothes, jumped the barbed-wire fence of a nearby shipping yard and smashed a window in a crazed, psychotic fit.
His girlfriend, Rachael Hickel, had fallen from the truck and was covered in blood.
"Smokin slurries": the illicit drug that Mr Punch is believed to have taken.
She had taken her top off to clean herself as she ran off in the opposite direction, desperately yelling "help me, help me".
Mr Punch was "totally weird", according to a security guard who approached him inside the shipping yard, near Newcastle.
He lunged at several guards, bit one on the hand and was eventually restrained and went into cardiac arrest.
Two days later, on October 23, 2012, his life support was switched off at Prince of Wales hospital.
An inquest into his death has heard that Mr Punch, Ms Hickel, shop assistants and owners of the Nauti and Nice adult store at Rutherford where they bought the drug, and even the manufacturer and distributor of "Smokin Slurrie" were all under the mistaken belief it was a "legal high".
It was a belief shared by "many, many other people, at least around the Hunter region," counsel assisting the coroner Peter Hamill, SC, told the inquest at Glebe Coroners Court on Tuesday.
A north shore law firm, Northside Law, had
written letters to adult shops, tobacconists and other sellers on behalf of the distributor of Smokin Slurrie vouching for the product's legality.
The distributor and manufacturer, a wealthy north shore ex-private school boy, successfully applied to the coroner to have his identity supressed during the four-day inquest.
Police testing later revealed that the drug's active ingredient was Alpha-PVP, a substance that is an "analogue" of a prohibited substance, making it illegal.
"The drug clearly had psycho-tropic effects . . . it was a mind-altering drug," Mr Hamill said. "The substance wasn't legal. The troubling thing is that it appears there was real confusion over that . . . It seems it was utterly unregulated."
Shop assistants from Nauti and Nice are expected to tell the inquest they sold thousands of dollars worth of bath salts every day but often saw purchasers behaving bizarrely after taking it.
Alpha-PVP has since been outlawed after sweeping changes to synthetic drug legislation in NSW following Mr Punch's death and the death of 17-year-old north shore student Henry Kwan, who jumped off a balcony while under the effects of another synthetic amphetamine.
The inquest heard Mr Punch and Ms Hickel, from the central coast, had tried the drug on four or five occasions and each time Ms Hickel had flushed the remainder down the toilet because it had terrifying effects on her partner, often causing him to take off his clothes, say strange things and become fidgety.
"It was like the lights were on but no one was home," Ms Hickel said, according to Mr Hamill.
However, the couple – who Mr Hamill said had been in a loving, long-term relationship – decided to inject the drug again in the back of his truck one afternoon .
The inquest will hear conflicting doctors reports on the cause of Mr Punch's death.
Most doctors agreed it was due to toxicity from Alpha-PVP, which has side effects including increased heart rate, hyper-tension, anxiety, paranoia, hypothermia and renal failure.
However, one doctor will give evidence to suggest Mr Punch may have died from excited delirium or positional asphyxia when he was restrained by security guards at the shipping yard.
The inquest before State Coroner Mary Jerram continues.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bath-salt...rifying-end-20131008-2v5jp.html#ixzz2h6IOXcon