NO SUCH THING AS ‘BAD BATCH’ ... NO BATCH IS A ‘GOOD BATCH’

EASE of production is both the reasons why and how the drug Fantasy can be lethal.

Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at Bond University Dr Treasure McGuire said because the drug does not have a hugely complex recipe, amateurs are able to cook batches at home.

But that is also where the problem lies, not only are the ingredients not quality controlled, every batch is different.

“I have a problem with the words ‘it’s a bad batch’ in isolation, because no batch is a good batch,” she said.

“Everything from subtle differences with heat and the quality of the building blocks to start with, this is not a product that is in any way quality controlled. You’re rolling a roulette wheel, you’ve got no idea what you’re ingesting.”

Acting Detective Inspector Simon Garrett said the recent spate of deaths and hospitalisations were proof of how dangerous drugs really are.

“That’s why they’re illegal – you never know what you’re taking so there’s certainly a high degree of risk as recent events have shown,” he said.

There have been 1035 drugrelated presentations to Gold Coast hospitals this year, more than 28 per week.

Both police and Dr McGuire could not comment on whether Fantasy is the latest “trend”, however Dr McGuire said based on the evidence, it can be drawn that serious injury as a result of Fantasy is increasingly apparent.

“There are peaks and troughs when it comes to drugs – people may not be cooking one type of drug up, so people turn to other drugs,” he said.

“That may be the case currently with Fantasy.”

It is commonly accepted that people ingest Fantasy for the high that comes with it, however there is also a huge array of negative side effects that Dr McGuire said is an unavoidable part of the experience and that is often what leads to neurological and physical overdoses.

“You might be thinking you’re going to experience X but in fact you experience Y depending on the dose, which is totally uncontrolled,” he said.