Drug warning at festival: test group says MDMA replaced ‘dangerous’ cathinones

Summer festival goers are being warned of an “incredibly dangerous” substitute that is increasingly appearing in MDMA being tested.

Know Your Stuff has reported in its latest drug monitoring clinics that what people thought would be plain MDMA is simply cathinones or just enough MDMA to “fake” the tests.

Synthetic cathinones, also known colloquially as “bath salts,” have a euphoric onset similar to MDMA, but wear off faster, leading to redosing and problems.

However, other effects are more powerful and can cause anxiety, paranoia, gastric upset, seizures or respiratory failure.

Mephedrone, a common cathinone found here, has been linked to a number of deaths in the UK and Europe.

The finding comes after the toxic industrial chemical methylenedianiline was discovered this month as being sold in place of MDMA in Auckland.

Know Your Stuff cautioned that the chemical has been linked to several cases of poisoning in Auckland, where patients suffered liver damage.

Cathinones are a family of stimulants that are often sold in place of MDMA.

They can be found both in compressed tablets and in crystal form.

The most common found in New Zealand include N-ethyl pentylone, mephedrone, and eutilone.

Methylone, mexedrone, 4-methylmethcathinone, MDPV and Alpha-PVP have also been found in rare cases.

Cathinones are often more potent than MDMA, so what a person might think was a manageable amount could end up being dangerous.

The effects of cathinone last between two and five hours, but the aftermath, including insomnia, generally last in your body between six and 24 hours.

Choosing again will extend these side effects.

One person who assumed they had weak MDMA and took multiple doses experienced what they called “48 hours from hell” of what turned out to be eutilone.

Know Your Stuff encourages people to visit their testing sites, if possible, or purchase their own reagent tests.

“The cathinones are incredibly dangerous and we prefer to see you regularly in the control tent summer after summer than in the hospital not once.”

Pill test law

Health Minister Andrew Little’s drug and substance control bill passed earlier this month.

The bill changes two laws: the Drug Abuse Act and the Psychoactive Substances Act to allow people to try their drugs at festivals without prosecution and to allow event organizers to host testers.

The bill will automatically expire in 12 months, and Little is committed to making a permanent change that will go through the full parliamentary process before then.

The law change came too late to allow Know Your Stuff to effectively test our summer festivals.

Wendy Allison told RNZ that there was not enough time to import the specialized spectrometer equipment needed to test all the festivals.

The organization had only three teams, meaning they could only attend three festivals at a time, Allison said.

“There are many more events than that, especially during the New Years period.”

He said there were other spectrometers in New Zealand, but they were hidden in laboratories.

“The ability to eliminate all that bureaucracy in the time that we have would be very limited.”

The spectrometers are made in Germany and took six weeks to arrive when the organization commissioned them last year.

“That was of course before Covid and not during the holiday season. So I would hope that if we order spectrometers tomorrow they will arrive in February at the earliest.”

Allison did not blame the government for the delays in the legislation, instead blaming it on outside influences such as Covid-19 and other political parties that opposed the law last year.

He said the legislation would help improve the service they could offer, because it allowed volunteers to handle the substances, making it more efficient.

Before the legislation, the group had to instruct festival-goers to test drugs themselves, fearing that volunteers would risk prosecution if they handled substances.

“It is not a total failure. We are limited in the number of events we can attend, but we will be able to help more people at those events.”