Victorian footballer Riki Stephens is currently in a coma,
after taking a party drug during an end-of-year footy trip.
But, it's unknown what drug the boy took exactly -
some believe it is either a new designer drug
or the synthetic stimulant flacca.
Flacca, or gravel, as it's sometimes known,
first came into headlines last year when it popped up in Florida.
The drug causes intense feelings of euphoria
like MDMA, but in some cases leads to
paranoia and aggressive behaviour.
It's of the same order as the now-notorious bath salts,
the drug that apparently makes you a cannibal.
Riki, sadly, isn't the only person to be hospitalised;
16 others have either overdosed or experienced
extreme psychological effects in the last two days.
And joining us from Canberra is emergency doctor
and The Feed's resident drug expert, Dr David Caldicott.
Now David, there's a lot of speculation about what drug
was actually repsonsible for the hospitalisations.
What do you think it is?
Well I think it's a little early to call it.
There's been a widespread speculation that it's
a rather dated drug now called flacca.
Alpha PVP is the formal name of it.
That's been around a while now,
so it wouldn't be anything novel if it was.
But I can think of at least four other drugs that need to be ruled out.
What's important is that there is a drug out there that
doesn't obviously seem to have an identity yet,
and we should get on to it fairly quickly.
It feels like every year or so there's a new synthetic drug
on the market, and they often come with horror stories.
What is it about synthetic drugs that's so dangerous?
I think there's a combination of things going on here.
There's obviously an element of the moral panic -
- tabloids sell newspapers on drug panics -
and so I think they're always looking for something new.
However the rate of turnover of these novel products
is really what's dangerous.
It's not so much the drugs themselves,
it's the market that's the biggest hazard to health.
We really can't keep up with the way that they're turning over.
To be fair though, it's not just newspapers
that love a good scary drug story,
we're also quite a big fan of them as well.
We are moving into the summer festival season -
we've also got schoolies, and typically speaking
drug usage tends to be on the rise at that time of year.
What's your advice to keep partygoers safe in the next couple of months?
If you want to be 100% certain about not getting hurt with a drug,
you probably shouldn't eat a drug.
There's no way you can stay completely safe
if you're going to experiment with drugs
the identity of which you don't know.
I think there are some very good messages that
come out of Europe that say,
'go slow and go low',
and 'take a quarter and don't forget the water'.
I think are probably two strong messages.
The potency of these drugs is phenomenal,
and far different to the ones that we're used to dealing with.
This will be a very hazardous summer indeed
for those people who choose to consume drugs.
Pill testing is quite controversial in Australia -
the government opposes it and doesn't want it.
Do you think we should have pill testing in Australia?
Of course, it's obvious.
There are now no health professionals that don't
think that this is a good idea.
There are none left - they've all left the country.
This is purely a political problem.
I've just returned from Vienna from a meeting
at the United Nations Office of Drug Control -
they're one of the most conservative organisations in the world
as far as drugs are concerned -
even they now believe that young people should
be able to test their drugs at the point of consumption.
This is just something we have to do.
It's the only way we're going to stay on top of this market.
Until that comes into force, there are
pill testing kits that exist out there online:
do you think people should be trying those out?
Are there dangers around that?
Look, I'm equivocal about them.
I applaud people who want to stay safe,
who are trying to do the right thing.
My concern is that perhaps they aren't
using them with the sort of information and backup
which could be useful to them.
Certainly those tests themselves aren't anywhere near
good enough to identify any of the
novel psychotropics that come on to the market.
There are people who are selling them,
and mean well.
It would be far preferable to actually do the job,
not half-cocked, but properly,
with laboratory equipment, on site.
And indeed off site, for in situ testing as well.
That would be much more preferable.
Dr David Caldicott, thank you so much for joining us.
Anytime.