Know Your Stuff Issues Warnings to Party Goers About Drugs

By RNZ

A drug control organization warns partygoers about the danger of drugs being sold as something they are not.

Know Your Stuff deputy editor Jez Weston says there has been a rise in synthetic cathinone, also known as bath salts, which is poorly sold as MDMA.

“At first they feel a bit like MDMA, there is a little bit of the euphoria but it goes away in about an hour, leaving people just excited, agitated and tempted to take more,” Weston said.

If people were to take the dose again, they could have trouble sleeping for 24 to 48 hours, have headaches, an upset stomach, confusion and seizures, he said.

But if they were going to use drugs anyway, he urged them to have his organization review them.

“If you can’t prove something, treat it with caution and potentially avoid it.”

The home testing kits available weren’t as good as the testing process Know Your Stuff provided, but they were better than nothing, he said.

Home test kits might tell the difference between MDMA and cathinone, but they are not good at giving an indication of the different chemicals in a drug.

“It will show you that something contains MDMA, but that doesn’t rule out more dangerous substances.

“But it’s so much better than just taking a pill and throwing it down your neck. It gives people a chance to find out what might be there and to take responsibility for their own health.”

– RNZ