TEST DOING DRUGS WITH
PAUL DILLON

The blog I wrote about the urban myth ‘Strawberry Quik’ has been one of my most popular. A couple of readers have contacted me and asked me if there are other false drug warnings that could be doing the rounds that they should be aware of. In fact, there are a number of urban myths that often come in the form of an email or Facebook message giving you a warning about some 'terrible new drug trend'. These include stories of ecstasy that contains glass (apparently designed to tear the inside of your stomach wall, thus enabling you to absorb the MDMA quicker), and LSD soaked tattoos (created to ensnare little children into the world of illicit drugs as early as possible).   One of the most persistent urban myths deals with a drug called ‘Progesterex’. Here is a version of the email that I first received in 2007 and have since found in my in-box many times over the years:   "Please advise your daughters and send to as many people, this is very tragic.   A...

Late last year a 15 year old young man from NSW's Central Coast was found dead after allegedly using LSD. As yet no toxicology results have been released but at the time the death was widely reported as an 'LSD overdose'. If that ends up being the case it will be highly unusual - those deaths that have been linked to LSD are usually classed as 'misadventure' and involve the user being involved in accidents, falls or car crashes whilst under the effect of the drug. Regardless of what caused the death the incident highlights a growing issue that I have been observing over the past couple of years amongst high school students - the growing use of hallucinogens. Drug use tends to go in 'cycles' - particular drugs go in and out of favour over time - we certainly went through a stimulant cycle in the late 1980s and early 90s, with the ecstasy culture growing rapidly. We then moved into the 'heroin years' in the latter half of the 90s. What I am seeing now...

As I’m just about to begin my presentations to school communities across the country for 2013 it is quite a coincidence that today I received an email from a remarkable young woman who wanted to share her story with me. I woke up this morning to receive this email: “At the end of 2011 I heard you speak at my school in Brisbane and you were truly captivating. Since that time I've had a pretty extreme life event - very similar to those you recounted during your talk - and was wondering if I could send you a quick email about it? If you ended up retelling my story and it made even one person think again about what they were doing I would be thrilled.” I wrote back immediately and a while later an email arrived that told of the young woman’s journey over the past couple of years. To describe it as harrowing would be an understatement – you name it, she had done it and had suffered the consequences. A girl who obviously had it all – a great school, parents who gave her everything ...

There’s been a lot of media coverage recently about the issue of energy drinks. According to some of the press reports (and you never really know how much of what is reported is actually true!), some health experts are calling for energy drinks to be banned and admissions to emergency departments due to these drinks have recently doubled. Energy drinks have become increasingly popular over the past few years and are a huge money-spinner for companies. There are now many brands available and there is great pressure to increase market-share. In the advertising that promotes these products we are told that these drinks will give us an extra boost and there is often the suggestion that there is something contained within the drink that you are not going to find elsewhere. Some products do have additional ingredients (such as guarana), but for most of these drinks it is the caffeine and sugar which are the active ingredients that give these drinks their supposed ‘boost’. Let me start by...

I have recently been contacted by someone who had received a Facebook message warning about a new drug apparently “going around” schools in the US called ‘Strawberry Quick’. It’s a great worry that this story is doing the rounds again, this time on Facebook instead of via emails, but let’s clear it up quickly before it gets out of hand and ends up as a headline in the Daily Telegraph, again …   This is a classic ‘urban myth’ - this time telling the story of an apparent new marketing ploy of methamphetamine manufacturers. When it first appeared in this country, media stories quoted US drug agencies warning Australians to brace for a new wave of strawberry-flavoured amphetamines specifically designed to appeal to juvenile taste-buds. These stories were accompanied by email alerts sent around the country warning parents to be on the lookout for this new form of the drug which was once again being used by ‘drug pushers’ to target their children.   The flavoured drug, known as...

The 2011 Australian Secondary School Alcohol and Drug (ASSAD) survey was released today and for the next few years these figures will be used by a wide variety of people to describe what is going on amongst high school students in terms of alcohol and other drug use. I use the ASSAD data all the time - it is a great piece of research that provides some really useful information - but the response I get from many people I speak to, whether it be teachers, parents or those who work with young people in other sectors, is that the results simply don't match their experience. For the purposes of this post I'll be looking at just the illicit drug use, we'll leave the alcohol, tobacco and over-the-counter information for another day ... Once again, the data shows quite clearly that the majority of Australian secondary school students do not use illicit drugs. Here are just a few of the key findings: in terms of lifetime drug use, rates were either stable or decreasing for all ill...

In the week that the world-first initiative of the plain packaging of cigarettes has finally been introduced in Australia, we should be incredibly proud of our achievements in the tobacco area. We have one of the lowest rates of daily smoking in the world and data that we have available from the latest 2011 ASSAD Survey indicates that we continue to see an upward trend in the number of Australian high school students who have never smoked cigarettes. That said, I am seeing a very worrying trend across the country that may be removing some of the existing barriers around smoking - the increasing popularity of 'sheesha' smoking. About six months ago I was at a school in Sydney's eastern suburbs when a Year 10 student asked me about the harms associated with smoking a 'hubbly bubbly'. He had gone to a friend's 15th birthday and the parents of the birthday boy had given their son and his friends a sheesha to use at the party! I was absolutely floored - I couldn'...