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Showing posts from October, 2017

GHB date rape drug is back and pill testing may not help, says ED doctor

GHB the Date Rape Drug Discovered by a Russian chemist in the nineteenth century, used as a general anaesthetic in 1970s Dunedin, picked up by Californian bodybuilders in the 1990s - the drug known as GHB has travelled a long road to its current resurgence in the Australian party scene. On the weekend in Melbourne, more than 20 people were hospitalised after reportedly overdosing at the Electric Parade festival. GHB was blamed - one of the biggest overdoses of the drug since 10 people collapsed outside at a Gold Coast nightclub in 1996. "It's back again," exclaimed Dr David Caldicott, a Canberra-based emergency department doctor who was in Adelaide when GHB hit in the '90s. "I thought we managed to explain to people it was a stupid drug to take. Around Australia there will be emergency doctors everywhere holding their heads in their hands going, 'Oh God!'. "A new generation has started learning the mistakes all over again."