PARTY DRUG USERS TAKING COCKTAILS OF PILLS

Party drug use is increasing at staggering proportions and those taking
them are swallowing cocktails of pills not only to get high, but to come
down as well, an international conference on youth and drugs has been told.

Drug experts from Australia addressed the fourth International Conference
on Drugs and Young People in Wellington this week, on party drug use.

South Australian Drug and Alcohol Services Council spokesman Steve Lymb has
been operating a programme in Adelaide aimed at helping young people in the
dance party scene.

He described an increased use of drugs like amphetamines, Ecstasy, ketamine
and GHB in the dance scene and expected the trend would be the same in New
Zealand.

Those in that scene saw it as "culturally acceptable to use party drugs
when going out", he said.

But not only were users taking cocktails of drugs to get high, they were
using more to reduce the effects of coming down afterward.

Studies conducted in Australia showed users were aged between 16 and 36
with those aged between 20 and 29 the highest users. Ninety-one per cent of
drug users surveyed said they mixed Ecstasy use with other drugs, and 89
per cent said they took more drugs to help them come down.

Trends in Australia had seen the use of pure Ecstasy diminish, to be
replaced with other types of drugs. Though people thought they might be
taking Ecstasy it was more likely that it was a mixture of substances, Mr
Lymb said.

Drugs sold in Australian clubs and at dance parties as Ecstasy often
contained combinations of substances and drug testing kits sometimes failed
to pick up the difference, he said.

Monash University medical student Shaun Baxter, who had conducted a study
on Ecstasy use in Melbourne, said party drug use was growing at a "huge
rate", but many of the messages that drug educators and governments tried
to get across were misaimed.

Drug messages should be targeted at the culture around the drug use rather
than treated as a "pharmacological problem", he said. The message should be
about minimising drug use rather than saying "don't".