Vic: Rave GHB drama prompts renewed focus on dodgy drugs

AAP General News (Australia)
12-24-2008
Vic: Rave GHB drama prompts renewed focus on dodgy drugs

By Simon Mossman

MELBOURNE, Dec 24 AAP - They've had a great evening so far and the two young women
wait excitedly at the booth inside the rave venue.

There's just one thing they need to do before hitting the dance floor for another all-nighter.

Despite heavy security, the pair has managed to get into the venue each carrying a
vial or two of the liquid party drug GHB; just two of the dozens of revellers here tonight
with the same thing in mind.

Now to have the substance checked by volunteers staffing the drug-testing booth to
make sure their score is kosher.

Legal pill- or drug-testing is one scenario already mooted as a potential 'harm minimisation'
solution and one that, if approved by legislative authorities, could well have helped
the 30-plus ravers taken ill - some seriously - after downing a suspected bad batch of
the drug at a rave party in Melbourne the weekend before Christmas.

Paramedics arrived at Festival Hall in West Melbourne to find the revellers, aged in
their late teens to early 20s, in various states, some having experienced fits and breathing
problems after collapsing.

In small doses, the effects of GHB/GBH - also known as grievous bodily harm, Fantasy
or liquid ecstasy, or gamma-hydroxybutyrate to give it its proper chemical name - can
include a sense of well-being and relaxation but in larger amounts or if mixed with different
substances such as other depressants or alcohol, the effects can be potentially deadly.

"We're talking about an industrial chemical," says Damon Brogan, executive officer
of drug information and education group Vivaids.

"GHB is a tricky substance, it's an odourless liquid and how much you can take depends
on your body mass.

"If you start mixing it with alcohol, then it becomes a whole lot more dangerous.

"Either someone got the batch dosage wrong or it is the case that those affected had
mixed it with alcohol."

Straight away, ambulance authorities suspected the Festival Hall ravers had been sold
a bad batch and warned it could be only a matter of time before someone else died after
ingesting GHB.

Belinda Davey, a 21-year-old nurse, became Victoria's first GHB fatality in July 2005,
dying in a drug dealer's car outside a nightclub.

Mr Brogan said the incidences of GHB use had appeared to be declining in recent years
before Saturday night's incident.

"Ambulance statistics had been improving, meaning there were fewer and fewer attendances
at GHB-related incidents," he says.

"This was a strange and unexpected event for what was a fairly small crowd."

Unsurprisingly, providing drug-testing facilities is not likely to gain any currency
with governments who'd otherwise fear being seen to condone illegal drug-taking.

Sam Biondo, of the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA), said it would be
"an heroic and courageous move" for government authorities to go down such a road.

"Given that people will continue to use it and given the continued black market, if
you want to look at harm minimisation then we need to look at the mechanisms involved
to prevent deaths and injuries occurring," Mr Biondo says.

"Of course it is politically unpalatable for governments to make that decision but
as unpalatable as it is, maybe there needs to be some consideration of pill-testing so
people know what they are taking."

Other experts say such a solution is just as loaded with other problems, adding it
cannot be compared with measures such as controlled heroin injecting rooms.

"With pill and drug testing, they can only test for particular substances - we can
never be quite sure of exactly what substances are in any given drug," explains Geoff
Munro, policy manager at the Australian Drug Foundation.

"There's also an issue of legal liability. If a person has a pill tested and finds
the substance they thought it would contain and they take it and have a bad reaction,
then that puts the pill-tester in a very difficult position.

"With heroin-injecting rooms, it's a different scenario where the drug is taken under
medical supervision and people injecting that drug know exactly what they are injecting
and the outcomes are predictable.

"It's quite different when it comes to having thousands of people at a dance party.

I don't think the two issues are comparable."

As for more practical solutions, the Australian Drug Foundation and Vivaids say the
best approach to harm minimisation is, as always, continuing to educate the community
about drug use.

Furthermore, banning or shutting down events like dance parties would only drive the
problem underground and make it substantially more difficult to deal with, adds Vivaids'
Damon Brogan.

"It's not achievable that we are ever going to stop drug problems, but we can minimise
them," he says.

Then there is the basic issue that drug-taking is still illegal.

Mr Brogan said that had it not been for people too scared to call for an ambulance
in time to help Belinda Davey, ultimately because of fears of police involvement, the
outcome could well have been different.

"If people are too scared to call an ambulance, then someone will die," he warns.

"If people see their friends in trouble, then they need to get help and should not
worry about the police because ... if someone dies, it's then they should be worrying
about the police."

For their part, police chiefs say they will continue to take a hardline approach to
drugs, also promising tougher restrictions on organised events, including the upcoming
dance parties Sensation and Summadayze in Melbourne on new year's eve and new year's day.

"History tells us that these sorts of activities has the presence of drugs," says Victoria
Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe.

"My advice to those who are out to enjoy themselves is ... if they are going to use
drugs or possess drugs or traffick drugs we will be there and we will endeavour to catch
them."

AAP sjm/gfr/it/de

KEYWORD: GHB (AAP NEWSFEATURE)

2008 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.