Warning over dangerous party drugs
Dangerous drugs masquerading as MDMA are ‘‘bloody everywhere’’ this summer, drug-checking service Know Your Stuff says.
Of the samples it has tested at festivals, more than half have been dangerous cathinones, also known as bath salts, when people thought they had MDMA.
Know Your Stuff is dubbing 2020 the ‘‘summer of cathinones’’. In an alert posted on its website, it said the most common type of cathinone staff are seeing is eutylone.
‘‘We saw small amounts last year and now there’s heaps of it around. This is a big change and bad news.’’
Eutylone gives the same euphoric hit as MDMA but fades after an hour or so, often leading people to take more, thinking it’s weak MDMA. Know Your Stuff said it had heard ‘‘far too many tales ofmiserable experiences with eutylone’’.
‘‘The tales are all similar: ‘Last night I took some, after an hour or so I thought it was wearing off so I took some more, was awake all night, and now it’s midday and I can’t sleep and I feel like s...’’’
But they warned not being able to sleep was the best outcome; eutylone can also cause anxiety, headaches, paranoia, vomiting, convulsions and possibly death.
The service said it knew of at least two people who had needed medical help, one of whom was having seizures.
It’s early in the festival season, but the proportion of samples Know Your Stuff is seeing that don’tmatch what punters think they have is up on last year.
Over the 2019-20 season, almost one in 10 samples weren’t what the owner thought they were. This year, actual MDMA is ‘‘pretty scarce’’, the service said.
‘‘There’s so much eutylone around right now and so little MDMA that we say that if it’s not tested, don’t take it.’’