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Hundreds of New Year’s festival goers report serious and painful side effects after taking a drug they thought was MDMA.
Drug testing group KnowYourStuff says that about 40 percent of the MDMA samples it tested at festivals were actually a cathinone called eutilone.
While eutilone initially provided a similar sensation to MDMA, it went away faster, meaning people took more thinking it was weak MDMA.
Wendy Allison, who is the director of KnowYourStuff, said it was a substance with dangerous side effects.
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Know your material / supplied
Photos supplied of eutilone cathinone found by Know Your Stuff drug testing service instead of MDMA.
“The main ones are agitation, anxiety, a racing heart, people have described nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,” he said.
“And in very high doses we have also been told that people are experiencing hallucinations and psychosis.”
Some people still felt the effects of eutilone, more than a week after consuming it.
There could be a few reasons why cathinone was flooding the market.
“Covid has disrupted supply lines around the world for all types of products and we know that less MDMA is entering the country because customs have flagged it,” Allison said.
“We know there is less MDMA because people tell us that, so I think someone just took the opportunity to flood the market with these things and get rid of them.”
