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Townsville man says synthetic drugs nearly killed him

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Townsville man says synthetic drugs nearly killed him

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/townsville-man-says-synthetic-drugs-nearly-killed-him/story-fneuzlbd-1226657166298#ixzz2VEAcqOem

A TOWNSVILLE boilermaker, who was hooked on so-called "legal highs" for two years, says synthetic cannabis almost killed him and destroyed his life.

Bill, who did not want his surname published, said he went from being a productive full-time employee to a "jittery" addict who would leave his work early so he could get a fix.

"I tried a lot of different things (drugs) when I was a young bloke but this stuff, nothing comes close to it," Bill said.

"I have done marijuana, ecstasy trips, cocaine, but nothing comes close to what that s--t did to me."

Queensland police have been blitzing businesses selling synthetic drugs, with a search warrant executed in Mackay yesterday.

Townsville police also raided local adult shops, corner stores, tobacconists and an alternative lifestyle shop last week, resulting in a number of arrests.


Mount Isa police have reported drivers so high they believed uniformed officers were aliens "out to get them" while health authorities have warned that users have presented to emergency departments with serious physical and mental health consequences as a result of taking synthetic drugs.

Despite this, the Townsville Bulletin has received numerous texts from readers defending the illegal product.

Bill, 38, said he turned to synthetic drugs after workplace drug testing started at mine sites around Australia, and admits to spending $250 a fortnight on synthetic cannabis at Townsville retailers at his peak.

"Even that wasn't enough," Bill said. "I was well and truly hooked on the stuff and when I didn't have it, I would think about it constantly."

Bill started smoking synthetic cannabis in 2011. Initially, the highs were relaxing but short-lived, and soon he was smoking up to 20 "buckets" a night.

But in September 2012, his addiction to synthetic cannabis took an ugly turn, when a sensation like "my body was in a vortex" overcame him, and he ended up curled up in the foetal position on the dining room floor.

"I felt like I was on fire, like I was cooking from the inside out and my chest and arms felt they were going to pop," he said. "I felt like I was going to die."

Despite this, Bill's addiction to synthetic cannabis continued, with numerous other "turns" before he sought help.

On one occasion, Bill said he dragged his partner around the house, not because he wanted to hurt her but because he thought his life depended on her being with him.

On another, he walked straight past his family, sat in his car and could not move for 20 minutes.

With tears in his eyes, Bill recalled the moment that snapped him out of his addiction. His daughter was home when he had a bad reaction to the chemical high.

"That was it for me," he said. "I knew things had gone too far. That was the last straw."

Bill sought help through a workplace counsellor, and has been off synthetic cannabis since January.

He is just grateful for the support of his partner throughout his dark period, and has issued a warning to other users.

"I know a lot of other guys, and women for that matter, who are still using it," he said.

"But this s--t is dangerous and it worries me that people are defending it, calling for it to be legalised."


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20 buckets please

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He doesn't even know what drug he was taking and doesn't even know what drugs people want to legalize but is against them all anyway.

This guy has great potential to become a politician.

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im starting to think bills not a real person

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people have choices you know. i'm aware of the addictive nature of some drugs but at a certain point people have to take responsibility for themselves and say "it's not the drugs, it's me". like i said, i'm sick of people blaming their problems on drugs.

it's the sort of stigmatisation of drugs which is going on in this article which is a result of people not taking responsibility for their actions, and saying "it wasn't me it was the drugs", consequently handing to the government responsibility for policing their actions when they should have the wherewithal to do it themselves.

Edited by qualia
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I think a better headline would've been

"Local man says synthetic marijuana worse than cocaine!"

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lol, the quality of journalism these days is horrendous. Only thing missing from the article is some twitter commentary.

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qualia i couldnt have said it better myself. I see things like that in the media all the time about people in court. 'its not my fault that i did (insert crime here) because i was drunk or high'. and most of the time they get way less of a sentence than if they did it sober. so the moral of the story is, make sure you are nice and fucked up if plan on breaking the law

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people have choices you know. i'm aware of the addictive nature of some drugs but at a certain point people have to take responsibility for themselves and say "it's not the drugs, it's me". like i said, i'm sick of people blaming their problems on drugs.

it's the sort of stigmatisation of drugs which is going on in this article which is a result of people not taking responsibility for their actions, and saying "it wasn't me it was the drugs", consequently handing to the government responsibility for policing their actions when they should have the wherewithal to do it themselves.

I gotta say, you do write some awesome posts quailla and do also seem to be the king of one liners, but brother that is probably the second most ignorant post in this thread. Of course drugs can destroy people! Imagine freebase cocaine being sold on every street corner at 20 cents a rock.

But I suppose that’s the conundrum of drugs in the modern world. On the one hand you have people claiming any recreational drug they don’t personally like as being pure evil and demanding that anyone who uses them needs to be saved from themselves and classed as a criminal, then you have the people on the other side claiming recreational drugs are in no way the cause of significant suffering and broken lives within society and are the savoir of mankind. Imo, both opinions have a detrimental effect on society in there own ways

When will the extremist on both sides wake up to themselves and realise that recreational drugs can ruin lives and are a major health concern within society, but can also be very beneficial for the body and mind (and also fun, which I am under the impression that is what life is meant to be about, having fun!) when regulated appropriately and used responsibly.

Imo, the true solution to this issue is somewhere between the middle of both extreme views.

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im starting to think bills not a real person

Its not unheard of for departmental PR offices to anonymously send editorial comment to nudge an issue into a more acceptable direction. ant say if Qld police do it or not but other dept's certainly have.

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I gotta say, you do write some awesome posts quailla and do also seem to be the king of one liners, but brother that is probably the second most ignorant post in this thread. Of course drugs can destroy people! Imagine freebase cocaine being sold on every street corner at 20 cents a rock.

But I suppose that’s the conundrum of drugs in the modern world. On the one hand you have people claiming any recreational drug they don’t personally like as being pure evil and demanding that anyone who uses them needs to be saved from themselves and classed as a criminal, then you have the people on the other side claiming recreational drugs are in no way the cause of significant suffering and broken lives within society and are the savoir of mankind. Imo, both opinions have a detrimental effect on society in there own ways

When will the extremist on both sides wake up to themselves and realise that recreational drugs can ruin lives and are a major health concern within society, but can also be very beneficial for the body and mind (and also fun, which I am under the impression that is what life is meant to be about, having fun!) when regulated appropriately and used responsibly.

Imo, the true solution to this issue is somewhere between the middle of both extreme views.

think a bit harder about what i wrote. i never said drugs were harmless or not linked to suffering. what i did say is that people make choices. after finding himself in the fetal position on the floor of his kitchen "bill" made a choice to get right back on it. he was no more powerless then as he was when he finally decided to stop. he could have sought help but he made a choice not to. that is bill's fault, not the fault of any drug.

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qualia i couldnt have said it better myself. I see things like that in the media all the time about people in court. 'its not my fault that i did (insert crime here) because i was drunk or high'. and most of the time they get way less of a sentence than if they did it sober. so the moral of the story is, make sure you are nice and fucked up if plan on breaking the law

I have said this on here before, but it is actually a legit excuse not to buy a train ticket if you are "under the influence of drugs and subsequently unable to realise you need to have a ticket" ....i'm not getting no letters from no shrinks though :P

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I never trusted Bill, I'm sure he's an alien.

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Bill, if he exists, did finally get himself sorted. And he, like so many others, took something he thought he could control.

What this highlights to me is how knowledge is self-empowering. The fact is that governments and dealers of illegal substances are both working on ignorance to push their agenda- one is anti-fun, the other is pro profit. In my mind, one is worse than the other but neither is a sensible approach.

Our drug laws are ridiculous, and it has directly contributed to this situation, so ultimately I lay the blame at their door. Profit making is the primary motive of running our economy, this lessens the evil of selling (legal) alternatives considerably, though suppliers should take some responsibility for what they sell this is not a common mode of behaviour in a rampant capitalist society.

Bill's story sounds make-believe, but it is based in a kind if reality that is discomfiting to the pro camp and will be used as a weapon against us unless we can highlight clearly the fact that it is the prohibition laws which are at fault

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this is 'bill' :bong: bill likes to :bong: synthetic sht. bill freaked out :ana::wacko: and told his story to a 12 year old journo. now bills a narc. good on you bill.

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ahh the myth of willpower, hey?

Substances can erode this "willpower", it must be remembered, rendering people unable to seek help.

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What's weird about this article is that it is so non-specific as to what he was taking, and the police seem to be cracking down on ALL legal highs, with no evidence at all apart from on-specific anecdotal stories.

I am non the wiser as to what is safe, and what is to be randomly made illegal. It's a very frustrating state of affairs.

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Realistically, if I'm able to buy a steak knife, or drain cleaner, or a chainsaw, or drive a one ton metal box on 4 wheels, or a high-powered rifle, or sugar by the kg - then evidently my safety has always been left up to me anyway.

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2 decades of research in holland, switzerland and portugal has shown conclusively that increased availability of drugs does not increase consumption. It has also shown that addicts and drug induced mental health patients seek help sooner and have more funding for such help.

Bottom line is that prohibition kills.

Hanging onto simplistic models that are simply untrue does not help anyone. When I read articles like this all I think of is the unintended damage it will cause.

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think a bit harder about what i wrote. i never said drugs were harmless or not linked to suffering. what i did say is that people make choices. after finding himself in the fetal position on the floor of his kitchen "bill" made a choice to get right back on it. he was no more powerless then as he was when he finally decided to stop. he could have sought help but he made a choice not to. that is bill's fault, not the fault of any drug.

Yeah, sorry braz I didn’t read it that way. I read it more like (paraphrasing) all drugs should be freely available to everyone and if someone happens to come undone as a result, then it’s simply because they are weak. But if you say that wasn’t what you meant, then I guess it wasn’t what you meant.

2 decades of research in holland, switzerland and portugal has shown conclusively that increased availability of drugs does not increase consumption. It has also shown that addicts and drug induced mental health patients seek help sooner and have more funding for such help.

That’s actually completely untrue. Just look at what happened when England flooded china with cheap opium, or the detrimental effect of having an unregulated pharmaceutical industry in the US at the beginning of the 20th century. Sure mothers probably used to sleep a lot better back then, but only at the expense of turning their children into heroin addicts.

In fact, 2 decades of research in Holland, Switzerland and Portugal has ‘in no way’ shown conclusively that increased availability of drugs does not increase consumption, personally I doubt there even has been a significant increase of availability of drugs in those countries. What the research has conclusively shown, is that regulating drug use is a far more effective solution than prohibition. Prohibition just creates a ‘free for all’ and can actually end up causing more problems than the drugs themselves.

Bottom line is that prohibition kills.

Couldn’t agree more.

I should point out, I am generalising here and not necessarily referring to this article. In fact bills story sounds incredibly benign to me, $250 a fortnight is not exactly a life-destroying amount of money imo. Most young people probably spend more than that just partying on the weekend. Also I don’t know, but ending up on the living room floor in the foetal position, just kind of seems like money well spent to me.

Personally I love synthetic noids, they really are an interesting psychedelic, especially now I’m doing my 8 hours a day and just feeling positive about life in general and can hold my shit together. ‘But goddamn’, they are incredibly potent and far more additive in nature than cannabis and can really screw with your head if your not in a good head space.

Bottom line is, anyone who openly sells (or defends the people who do) unknown chemicals that have the potential to be more potent than DMT on plant matter as “not for human consumption” over the internet where even kids can freely buy it, purely to make a profit, is quite simply out right greedy!

Edited by SunChaser
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In a perfect world synthetic noids would only be available from tobacconists and other adult stores, with safety warnings and all ingredients clearly listed.

Edited by SunChaser

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In a perfect world they'd decriminalise and just let us smoke Cannabis. Synthetics are then void. No more bills curled up on floors. :)

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yes in that parallel universe bill remains seated at the kitchen table and comes up with with a really awesome idea.

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In a perfect world they'd decriminalise and just let us smoke Cannabis. Synthetics are then void. No more bills curled up on floors. :)

No! In a perfect world they’d legalise it, although I have no problems obtaining herb but still enjoy synthetic noids as a psychedelic by it’s own right. I do love activating my cannabinoid receptors.

Anyway, it’s just a waiting game in Australia at this time. We just have to wait for the US federal government to legalise cannabis, which will be years, rather than decade’s imo.

I should say, rereading that post I posted and it seems to now come across as way to strong. Honestly I couldn’t care less how people choose to make a dollar, I am just of the strong belief that making synthetic noids easily available to kids is seriously not cool.

One of the positive things I have found with noids is the self-revelations it produces, which some people might mistake for dread. I haven’t even smoked noids for months, but have been in the last 2 weeks, so every time I get home from work and have a cone, I am just overwhelmed with the thought that I’m going to be dead at 40 of lung cancer if I keep smoking cigarettes the way I do. So now I have brought nicotine patches and haven’t smoked a cigarette in 2 days, which is incredibly good for me. Still going strong and am confident I’ll be quitting for good now, but I’ll see.

Who would have thought synthetic noids can scare you into looking after your health better, lol.

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edit: wrong thread :)

Edited by simhanada

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