Addicts try 'anything’ as supply dries up

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34045, 8 January 1976, Page 1

Addicts try 'anything’ as supply dries up

Some Christchurch drug addicts are injecting themselves with almost anything they can lay their hands on as the supply in hard drugs dries up, according to the Christchurch police doctor (Dr M. F. Fahey).

Dr Fahey recently treated a person who had injected himself with boot polish.

’ “The crazy thing is that •they are main-lining with > anything, and they don’t •know the danger or the sideeffects the drugs can have if ithey are used for the wrong I purpose.” Many addicts who find 'their normal drug supply is jno longer available are turning their attention to doctors’

[surgeries and cars to find {drugs that will give them a I "high.” “Nearly all my friends have had their cars broken into recently,” Dr Fahey said. “The drag addicts know the doctors’ cars and number plates and there has been an incredible increase in thefts from doctors. Some doctors have been forced to put detection equipment in their cars to catch the thieves.”

Late last month some valuable resuscitation equipment and drugs were taken from Dr Fahey’s car. Dr Fahey made a plea for the return of the equipment, which was urgently needed for treating accident victims. Some of the equipment, for helicopter rescues, was found immersed in sea water, totally useless; the rest has not been seen.

“It is interesting that one of the persons who stole the equipment later needed it. He had been main-lining with one of the drugs he had stolen from my car. The drug was useless to him and it cost $3l an ampoule,” he said.

“A person would have died immediately if he had used in the wrong way some of the drugs taken from my car.

“These people appear to be incredibly selfish, and are prepared to destroy hundreds of dollars worth of equipment to get a small kick.” A few of the drugs being stolen from chemist shops and doctors are addictive, Dr Fahey said.

“These people completely lack discrimination, and have no idea what they are using. They have no judgment, and they can easily become hooked on a drug that is a killer.

“The type of drugs they are trying to get is totally

different from marijuana and is the type of drug that leads them to narcotics. From there, their life expectancy diminishes rapidly.

Dr Fahey said he feared that more and more people were experimenting with drugs and were distributing them to other people, who were becoming addicted. A vigorous campaign in schools was needed to warn young people of the dangers of drug abuse, he said.