Frontline police and rehabilitation workers say SA use of fantasy, cocaine and LSD are on the rise
There are growing fears drugs associated with 1980s Wall Street excess, one nicknamed “grievous bodily harm” and another commonplace at Woodstock, are on the rise.
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While the use of ice continues to worry police, drug dealers are being warned GHB – also known as fantasy or Grievous Bodily Harm – and LSD are also on their radar.
The JAIST team last year recorded its biggest seizure of LSD in South Australian history – 20,000 “trips”.
But it is the increased use and seizures of the liquid hallucinogen fantasy – used in textile manufacturing but swallowed or injected by foolish partygoers for a high – that also has police concerned.
Detective Chief Inspector Darren Fielke, the officer in charge of SAPOL’s drug and organised crime branch, said the drug was not in the amphetamine family but had similar effects.
“Some horrendous things happen to you when you’re coming down off it, including psychosis with violent tremors,” he said.
“We are starting to see quite a bit of it. It actually has a proper use – people use it in textile manufacturing, they use it to make Lycra.
“When it is ingested, your body metabolises it as GHB. You don’t have to manufacture this stuff. If you are a little bit resourceful, you can import into the country, and that is a worrying trend for us.”
In the past 18 months JAIST has seized 560kg of fantasy worth $2.2 million.
SA Network of Drug and Alcohol Services executive director Michael White said although alcohol and cannabis continued to be the most-used drugs in the state, there were some changing trends during the coronavirus pandemic.
He agreed fantasy and LSD appeared to be on the rise.
“We’ve heard that the price of methamphetamine has increased as there has been a reduced supply,” Mr White said.
“We’ve seen the emergence of a number of other drugs, including a rise in the number of people using cocaine and people using more cannabis.”
Mr White said there had been suggestions LSD had also come back onto the market. “The other one we have been hearing about is GHB, or fantasy, which seems to have become quite popular,” he said.