A Far South Coast advocate for Australians missing or incarcerated overseas is warning travellers to avoid new synthetic drugs following the death of Tasmanian Rye Hunt in Brazil in May.
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Foreign Prisoner Support Service’s Martin Hodgson, who lives on the Far South Coast, worked closely with Mr Hunt’s family following his disappearance from Rio de Janeiro airport.
Although forensic experts have been unable to pinpoint the cause of Mr Hunt's death, toxicological samples were taken from his body in an attempt to confirm what drug or drugs he had taken.
His family believed it was not MDMA - the primary ingredient in ecstasy - but instead a powerful new synthetic drug known as NBOMe, 25I, Blue Batman and N-Bomb.
“There’s no studies on these drugs for the most part and no one has the data to do anything comprehensive,” Mr Hodgson, of Kalaru, said.
“The old language was uppers, downers or hallucinogens.
“But drug and alcohol experts and pharmacologists are calling these new drugs ‘sideways’ as they can be a combination of all three.”
Mr Hodgson warns that unlike other so called “party drugs”, NBOMe is highly active after only micrograms have been ingested.
“This is one of the first times since LSD where dealers have no idea what they are selling to people, because each batch is so different,” he said.
“I would advise everybody not to touch it because synthetic drugs are becoming so dangerous and they are so new the people manufacturing these drugs have no care for the end user.”
While investigating Mr Hunt’s disappearance, Mr Hodgson received a message from an Australian woman in Bali whose husband had taken the synthetic drug and disappeared.
“There is some strange attitude that if you are overseas you can blow your socks off,” he said.
“These drugs don’t carry a stigma which comes from a lack of understanding of what they do.
“We are seeing huge numbers of first time drug users taking these synthetic drugs, which is a recipe for disaster.”
Often the gateway drug to these experimental situations is alcohol, he said.
Mr Hodgson said there is evidence the drugs are not just found around popular overseas tourist destinations in South America and South East Asia, but are also making their way into Australia and even being manufactured here.
“It is almost undetectable by sniffer dogs in customs,” Mr Hodgson said.