Last weekend I was part of a large team of around twenty people which provided first aid services for the Creamfields Music Festival in Melbourne. The team consisted of first responders (Paramedic/Nursing students), a senior paramedic and two doctors. Ambulance Victoria was also in attendance and available to assist with seriously unwell patients and hospital transports. I was given a 'heads up' that there were likely to be drug overdoses involved, so spent a couple of days during the preceding week reading up on illicit drugs and overdoses and also sought the advice of one of my tutoring colleagues who was an emergency physician in a past life and provided me with some excellent articles on GHB.
It was an interesting experience for me, never having had much practical exposure to the management of anything other than acute intoxication, but my colleagues had seen it all before and were very capable and confident in management, so I learned a lot. Even though I had read about it, it still seemed quite remarkable how quickly GHB users can go from unconscious to recovered. We saw people who had used GHB, LSD, ecstacy and of course lots of alcohol. Due to the rapid recovery rate there was minimal call on Ambulance involvement.
The Police came to advise us that they had increased their presence since last year's Festival, especially at the entrance gate, and had five sniffer dogs and a very large number of personnel. When I went to observe, it seemed as if one person was being pulled aside every few seconds to be taken to the holding area for investigation. The Age newspaper reported that two hundred people had been arrested for drugs infringements. Perhaps GHB is more difficult to detect as it is colourless and odourless, but we probably had the Police to thank that there were not more overdoses. A couple of people swore that they would never use drugs again due to the bad experience. It would be nice to believe them.
For excellent information and fact sheets relating to illicit drugs (and an iPhone app) from the Austrailian Government National Drugs Campaign, see:
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/home-1
This is an article relating specifically to the Creamfields festivals in Melbourne and Sydney:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/drugs-neardeath-plunge-at-creamfields-concerts-20120430-1xu4x.html
This is a further article in which a senior member of Victoria Police comments on the prevalence of and attitude towards illicit drugs and mentions some of the medical implications:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/top-policeman-lashes-out-at-drug-national-disgrace-in-wake-of-rave-arrests-20120506-1y73y.html
A subsequent interesting article about Ambulance Victoria callouts involving both illicit and prescription drugs:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/prescription-drugs-alcohol-wreak-havoc-20120507-1y95h.html
The Age Newspaper has recently established a "Wiki" page which lists a number of articles relating to the drugs debate and has a link to the WikiCurve and online comments and debate:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drug-law
A couple of days of days before Creamfields there was an article in The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-drugs-in-the-mail-20120426-1xnth.html) about anonymous websites such as Silk Road which offer illicit drugs for sale (some of which are even advertised as being lab tested for purity). These drugs are then shipped directly to the purchaser and carried by Australia Post right to the front door. According to the article, Australia Post only has the capacity to screen a small fraction of all parcels arriving into Australia. As has been said in the Press lately, it appears that the war against drugs is a war that cannot be won. However, it is indeed fortunate for drug users that in our affluent Western society they are provided with a safety net against the ultimate form of self-harm in death by overdose. Ambulance services will attend anyone in trouble, and our medical team was on-site to save people from themselves and resuscitate them if they stopped breathing. I wonder if they truly appreciate the risk they are taking and if they would still take it if they knew how easy it is to die or be permanently disabled from a simple lack of oxygen to the brain ...
Paramedics are the unsung heroes of our health system, and after hearing a lot over the past couple of years about what they do on a daily basis, I have nothing but respect and admiration for them and their work.
The Police came to advise us that they had increased their presence since last year's Festival, especially at the entrance gate, and had five sniffer dogs and a very large number of personnel. When I went to observe, it seemed as if one person was being pulled aside every few seconds to be taken to the holding area for investigation. The Age newspaper reported that two hundred people had been arrested for drugs infringements. Perhaps GHB is more difficult to detect as it is colourless and odourless, but we probably had the Police to thank that there were not more overdoses. A couple of people swore that they would never use drugs again due to the bad experience. It would be nice to believe them.
For excellent information and fact sheets relating to illicit drugs (and an iPhone app) from the Austrailian Government National Drugs Campaign, see:
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/home-1
This is an article relating specifically to the Creamfields festivals in Melbourne and Sydney:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/drugs-neardeath-plunge-at-creamfields-concerts-20120430-1xu4x.html
This is a further article in which a senior member of Victoria Police comments on the prevalence of and attitude towards illicit drugs and mentions some of the medical implications:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/top-policeman-lashes-out-at-drug-national-disgrace-in-wake-of-rave-arrests-20120506-1y73y.html
A subsequent interesting article about Ambulance Victoria callouts involving both illicit and prescription drugs:
The Age Newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/prescription-drugs-alcohol-wreak-havoc-20120507-1y95h.html
The Age Newspaper has recently established a "Wiki" page which lists a number of articles relating to the drugs debate and has a link to the WikiCurve and online comments and debate:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/drug-law
A couple of days of days before Creamfields there was an article in The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-drugs-in-the-mail-20120426-1xnth.html) about anonymous websites such as Silk Road which offer illicit drugs for sale (some of which are even advertised as being lab tested for purity). These drugs are then shipped directly to the purchaser and carried by Australia Post right to the front door. According to the article, Australia Post only has the capacity to screen a small fraction of all parcels arriving into Australia. As has been said in the Press lately, it appears that the war against drugs is a war that cannot be won. However, it is indeed fortunate for drug users that in our affluent Western society they are provided with a safety net against the ultimate form of self-harm in death by overdose. Ambulance services will attend anyone in trouble, and our medical team was on-site to save people from themselves and resuscitate them if they stopped breathing. I wonder if they truly appreciate the risk they are taking and if they would still take it if they knew how easy it is to die or be permanently disabled from a simple lack of oxygen to the brain ...
Paramedics are the unsung heroes of our health system, and after hearing a lot over the past couple of years about what they do on a daily basis, I have nothing but respect and admiration for them and their work.
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