News (Media Awareness Project) - Australia: Doctors Attend Raves - to Study |
| Title: | Australia: Doctors Attend Raves - to Study |
| Published On: | 2004-01-05 |
| Source: | Queensland Sunday Mail (Australia) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-19 01:30:34 |
DOCTORS ATTEND RAVES - TO STUDY
TEN doctors have teamed up to visit rave parties.
In an Australian first, the Royal Adelaide Hospital doctors will survey
drug users and investigate rave party substances such as ecstasy and fantasy.
The team recently went to its first rave, near Angaston, where five people
were admitted to intensive care after taking fantasy.
Many other users were treated for stomach cramps.
RAH research fellow Dr David Caldicott said he had been doing similar work
in Europe since 1997 but it was a new thing for Australia.
"It's a very useful thing for doctors to get involved in," he said.
The team's attendance "was primarily for research" but "if push comes to
shove" it would help medical volunteers treat overdose victims, he said.
At the event, attended by about 10,000 people, 300 partygoers were
voluntarily surveyed about drugs.
"Our job is to make sure this generation does not get maimed by taking
pills, Dr Caldicott said.
"The rave community or the pill-taking community . . . is far bigger than
conservative middle-class Australia would like to believe.
"About one in four young adults have taken ecstasy.
"The more you can learn about them the more you can go down that line of
harm minimisation."
He said the group was cautiously welcomed at the rave after assuring
partygoers they were interested in health and not moral issues.
The team, which also attended "schoolies week" at Victor Harbor, will visit
more raves after getting approval from event promoters.
Research would be used to monitor usage and frame education campaigns for
the "chemical generation".
About 300 people have overdosed in South Australia during the past four
years, often after taking drugs at raves.
Drugs such as fantasy, often made by "sharks and bikies", were most likely
to kill users, Dr Caldicott said.
Unlike the recent event, many raves had no medical staff to treat potential
fatal overdoses.
"Underground raves tend to be very secretive, quite hard core, much smaller
events -- much less planning and less sophisticated and more remote," he said.
TEN doctors have teamed up to visit rave parties.
In an Australian first, the Royal Adelaide Hospital doctors will survey
drug users and investigate rave party substances such as ecstasy and fantasy.
The team recently went to its first rave, near Angaston, where five people
were admitted to intensive care after taking fantasy.
Many other users were treated for stomach cramps.
RAH research fellow Dr David Caldicott said he had been doing similar work
in Europe since 1997 but it was a new thing for Australia.
"It's a very useful thing for doctors to get involved in," he said.
The team's attendance "was primarily for research" but "if push comes to
shove" it would help medical volunteers treat overdose victims, he said.
At the event, attended by about 10,000 people, 300 partygoers were
voluntarily surveyed about drugs.
"Our job is to make sure this generation does not get maimed by taking
pills, Dr Caldicott said.
"The rave community or the pill-taking community . . . is far bigger than
conservative middle-class Australia would like to believe.
"About one in four young adults have taken ecstasy.
"The more you can learn about them the more you can go down that line of
harm minimisation."
He said the group was cautiously welcomed at the rave after assuring
partygoers they were interested in health and not moral issues.
The team, which also attended "schoolies week" at Victor Harbor, will visit
more raves after getting approval from event promoters.
Research would be used to monitor usage and frame education campaigns for
the "chemical generation".
About 300 people have overdosed in South Australia during the past four
years, often after taking drugs at raves.
Drugs such as fantasy, often made by "sharks and bikies", were most likely
to kill users, Dr Caldicott said.
Unlike the recent event, many raves had no medical staff to treat potential
fatal overdoses.
"Underground raves tend to be very secretive, quite hard core, much smaller
events -- much less planning and less sophisticated and more remote," he said.
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