Our synthetic drug issue
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These chemicals are sprayed or soaked into a plant, which is dried and then smoked, MidCentral District Health Board health promotion adviser Martin Macmaster says.
That’s why the drug is sometimes misleadingly referred to as synthetic cannabis, he says.
It produces stronger effects, such as an elevated mood or feeling of relaxation. But, more recently, the drug has become synonymous with psychotic effects, which can include extreme anxiety, confusion, paranoia and even hallucinations.
This is down to it being crudely manufactured and often imported and mixed with several unknown chemicals, Mcmaster says.
‘‘You’re just like a guinea pig in someone’s science experiment,’’ he says.
‘‘You don’t know what’s going to happen until after.’’
Macmaster says the chemicals were 75 times more potent than cannabis and, in the past six months, police have seized six kilograms of base chemicals.
‘‘That’s enough to make 120kg of product and you don’t even have to invest in science equipment.’’
A $300 start up could return more than $10,000, he says.
WITHDRAWALS
Feilding man Don James feared for his wife’s life as his two sons repeatedly struck out during their recovery from synthetic drug use.
James can’t recall the amount of times he was thrown against the wall or number of holes punched around the house.
He was frightened the boys would redirect their anger to his wife Tina, who has Huntington’s Disease.
An inherited condition in which nerve cells in the brain break down over time, James says the condition was largely responsible for why eldest son Rowan, 23, turned to synthetic drugs.
‘‘It was the stress of potentially inheriting that. He’s a 50-50 chance of getting it.’’
Rowan James displayed all the signs – hanging around the wrong crowd, asking for money, aggressive behaviour.
Despite that, Don and Tina James never gave up hope. They tried Te Manawa Family Services and talked openly to the boys about their struggles.
The bottom line? For two
years, the boys didn’t want to shake their addiction.
Don James remembers the first time he walked in on Rowan passed out.
‘‘I went into the garage and I saw him with a bong, sprawled out along the ground, and I knew it couldn’t have been [natural cannabis].’’
Paramedics resuscitated him in the driveway as he begun convulsing violently. It took two police officers to stop him from ‘‘thrashing about’’.
‘‘It definitely rewires the brain, but it’s more than that. The anxiety starts to kick in.
‘‘I was afraid one of them was going to belt their mother.’’
It hurt Don James to see his sons waste their lives.
They should have been looking to their futures, finding a job, but all that goes to the wayside when it becomes all about finding the next hit.
It came to a head last month, when Rowan was one of three hospitalised and Wahanui, his mate, died.
Rowan’s brush with death has finally changed him, Duncan says.
‘‘I said to him ‘what would you say if I offered you some right now, Rowan?’.
He said: ‘I’d tell you to f... off because I don’t want to die’.’’