NEWS: SSO - 15/02/07 'Home Truths - Drug Overdoses at Home'

[lil angel15]

HOME TRUTHS
by Ian Gould

WITH CONCERNS ABOUT DRUG OVERDOSES AT HOME ON THE RISE, COMMUNITY HEALTH GROUPS ARE STEPPING UP EDUCATION EFFORTS.

February in Sydney means revelry aplenty in the lead-up to Mardi Gras, but the current party season has a somewhat different look.

Rather than focusing exclusively on the club scene, community health groups are taking drug education efforts to an unexpected audience: people who party at home.

This week, ACON launched an online survey to gather information about drug use at private parties, prompted by 2005 National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre findings showing rising rates of GHB overdoses at home.

“The survey is really us doing consultation with the community and targeting people who party at home,” ACON's alcohol and other drugs program manager Nicky Bath says.

“It's for people who are having sex parties, recovery parties, chill-out parties and parties full-stop where alcohol and other drugs could be consumed.”

The short survey, available on the ACON website, looks at GHB and other drugs such as crystal meth and alcohol. It also covers legal, emergency and harm reduction issues. ACON plans to release an online health resource based on survey findings in the next few weeks.

“This isn't research per se, it's implementing a survey to get the community's input into resource development,” Bath says.

The ACON initiatives are timely, according to Paul Dillon from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. While research on drug use at home is limited, anecdotal evidence suggests GHB overdoses at home are growing, “particularly in the ‘recovery' mode”, Dillon says.

“One of the most significant changes in clubbing culture in the last few years has been that move from going from club to club to club. Now people go from club to club to home,” Dillon says.

“It's that notion of going out partying and then going to someone's house afterwards and doing the G thing.”

Other drugs that pose problems when used at home include crystal meth and ecstasy, but GHB remains the major worry, according to Dillon.

“The very unfortunate thing is that if you look at the [GHB-related] deaths that have occurred in our community, [of] which there have been a few, I don't know one which has occurred in a club. They've all occurred in a home environment,” he says.

“People need to remember that if you're in a club environment you have sober people around you, you have trained security staff, management.

“If something goes wrong they are much more equipped to make decisions.”

The ACON Partying at Home survey can be completed under the Latest Information heading at the ACON website.

Sydney Star Observer

 

[Splatt]

Well this is a worry, but i like it how they pretty much singled out GHB. What about those people that overdose at home on benzos to get a good nights sleep. Or schizophrenics that overdose on a prescribed dose of olanzepam / Zyprexa or Risperdal every night.

But they has a point, people that do depressant drugs at home often are at much more risk overdosing and maybe even having bad side effects or health issues than if they were out at a club where theres lots of people around. But there's people like me who have never been good sleepers, and need drugs to put themselves to sleep, including G, alcohol, pot or benzos. I find G to have the least side effects and be the least addictive.

 

[who_can_say]

I think G has been singled out because, out of all the drugs out there, your novice drug user is probably going to come into contact more with G than with benzos. I think this is just born out of clubs' policies to try and push visible drug use out of their premises and then not give a shit what people do afterwards. Trying to ban people from using drugs in clubs doesn't stop them from using, they just use in a different place. So getting people to make sure they (a) tell their friends what they're taking, and (b) get people to monitor their friends if they're doing stuff like G and alcohol, I think is a good thing :D