DRIVEN TO DRUGS: A CRASH COURSE IN DEATH

TRUCK drivers who fill up on stimulants to keep on the road run the risk of
"crashing like a computer".

And there are no warning bells: the rig just runs off the road, leaving the
tell-tale tyre marks heading for the gutter. The phenomenon is known as
rebound fatigue - the greatest risk to drivers on stimulants - and to
anyone else who happens to get in the way.

A driver on a long-distance trip might need stimulants a number of times.
The artificial alertness the stimulants produce masks the diver's natural
fatigue, but when the driver comes down when the dosage falls to merely
therapeutic levels - drivers can hit the wall of sleep without warning.

"When drivers do crash they could sleep for 24 hours," forensic
pharmacologist Judy Perl says. "It's such a tenuous situation there's no
definite signs it's coming on."

The problems start when divers develop a tolerance for stimulants.

"The more tolerance, the more likely it is for the driver to experience
hallucinations - visual and aural," Dr Perl says. Hallucinations can range
from seeing a jogger running alongside the truck or, as suspected in the
Grafton crash, the appearance of a phantom vehicle.

"The perception is that these divers are working abnormally long hours," Dr
Perl says. "If they take rest breaks they won't need the drugs."

The drugs of choice for truck drivers have changed since the early 1990s,
from illicit amphetamines to prescription drugs bought on the black market.

Paul Dillon, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, says:
"They're not very powerful but the drivers take a lot of them." Speed was
the drug of choice in the late 1980s and early 90s "but the mindset is
different now".

The prescription drugs that Dillon says are in vogue are Ritalin (for
attention-deficit disorder) and dexamphetamine (narcolepsy).

Truck drivers are unusual among drug-taking road users because they tend to
use only stimulants, although a dnver who has taken stimulants may take
cannabis to help him sleep.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski