00:02
AEST Tue Aug 28 2012 NINEMSN
Drug
users are being urged to be wary of buying harmful "legal high"
stimulants over the internet.
Mephedrone
- a drug also known as "miaow miaow" and bath salts - is banned in
most parts of Australia.
Kronic, a
synthetic cannabis, is also illegal.
But other
drugs, known as "legal highs", are still available through many of
Australia's 100 internet retailers, the National Drug and Alcohol Research
Centre (NDARC) says.
NDARC
director Professor Michael Farrell said users needed to beware of the
substances they are buying online, which are often sold under various
misleading names.
"They
don't know what they're buying. What they think they're buying may be something
different," he told AAP.
"Just
because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's not harmful."
Prof
Farrell is among 22 experts who will address NDARC's annual drug symposium on
Tuesday at the University of NSW.
The
Sydney conference is discussing ways of keeping pace with the escalating
availability of synthetic drugs on the internet and the challenges law makers
face.
Dr Lucy
Burns, NDARC's head of drug monitoring, said internet drug retailers often made
slight changes to the properties of a banned substance to make it technically
legal.
"Our
laws have to keep trying to stay one step ahead," she said.
Dr Burns
said the ingredients in many legal and illegal drugs were a mystery.
"There's
no testing procedure," she said, adding many of these substances were
known to trigger psychosis, depression, anxiety and cardiac problems.
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