Synthetic LSD, cocaine, marijuana: Loophole still exists

DEADLY drugs are hitting our streets, and they just keep coming. Freely available, most are undetectable and authorities are struggling to keep up.

THEY are the deadly drugs hitting our streets, and they just keep on coming.

Freely available in shops and over the internet, most are undetectable to police sniffer dogs and authorities are struggling to keep up with the growth in demand.

That is the warning revealed in a hard-hitting expose on SBS show The Feed,tonight, where reporter Andy Park investigates the growing danger of the synthetic drugs market.

Park’s investigation reveals not only has the synthetic drug problem has failed to go away, but also that testing is failing to keep up.

MORE: What synthetic drugs do to your body

Speaking to news.com.au ahead of tonight’s show, Park said his investigation showed a loophole still existed and the range and growth of the drugs continued to grow at a frightening speed.

Park said synthetic drugs remain widely available despite amendments to the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act which include Emerging Psychoactive Substances (EPS) more than a year ago.

“Your internet-savvy teenage son or daughter doesn’t need to know a bikie dealer to cheaply get their hands on EPS,” he said.

“Compounds rejected from overseas laboratories for having a psychotropic effects somehow end up for sale on the internet.”

He said this very loophole was the same which allowed the allowed the legal sale of EPS like the ones that killed Henry Kwan.

Henry Kwan fell off a balcony and died after taking synthetic drugs.

Daniel Skelly died after taking drugs he bought on a website.

Kwan died after taking a synthetic drug and falling from a third floor balcony at his home in Killara.

The drug, which caused the 17-year-old to think he could fly is a new product called NBOMe.

It was also the same loophole which allowed 21-year-old Daniel Skelly, an engineering student, to buy what he thought was cocaine off the internet in 2013.

It is believed the drug contained a toxic synthetic substitution, which contributed to his death.

His mother tells The Feed: “I still do not know what is in that powder, it still has not been compressively tested.”

Daniel Skelly’s mother is still coming to term with her son’s death. Picture: Screengrab.

Park, who purchased synthetic drugs over the counter, later had it tested and found it contained UR144m — an illegal synthetic cannabinoid linked to kidney damage.

The drug was later destroyed.

The availability of such drugs surprised him and led police to admit during the interview that “the drugs are problematic.”

Park added the marketing was also geared towards impressionable teenagers with packets often labelled as “tea” or “party pills” or “sky thyme”.

One researcher told him the synthesisation of new drugs is moving so fast that it’s like “stopping a freight train”.

“It’s clear that the problem of synthetic drugs have not gone away at all,” Park told news.com.au.

“And it’s a mistake to think they’re all coming from overseas.”

He also said part of the issue was teens feeling pressured into buying and trying drugs with some being virtually undetected in drug tests.

The Feed reporter Andy Park filmed during testing of synthetic drugs. Picture: Screengrab.

“It’s clear this needs a coordinated national effort to combat this as well as more emphasis on the role of police,” he said.

Park’s warning about the deadly availably of synthetic drugs follows the death of two Queenslanders, a 33-year-old man and a 41-year-old man, after taking drugs marketed as a “natural high” in January.

Tragically, theirs are part of a growing list of synthetic drug-related deaths.

Long-haul truck driver Glenn Punch’s death 2012 was also blamed on synthetic drugs.

Punch, 44, was under the influence of a drug known as ‘Smokin’ Slurry’ designed to mirror the effects of speed.

Watch Andy Park’s investigation on The Feed on SBS 2 tonight at 7.30pm.