Emerging Psychoactive Substances: What do workers need to know?Cameron FrancisSocial Worker

Firstly, what is Dovetail?Dovetail provides clinical advice and professional support to workers, services and communities across Queensland who engage with young people affected by alcohol and drug use

Service Practice Improvement Toolkit

• 3 more to come…– Working with Families and Significant Others– Improving Services and Service Systems– Culturally Secure Practice with Indigenous Young People

3 Good Practice Guides

General Support & Assistance

• By phone • By email• In person

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs• Majority of calls were regarding

synthetic cannabinoids• Many of these calls were questions

about legal status: “Where are they accessing these things from?”

• Several calls from mental health units regarding inpatients:– Psychotic symptoms– Continuing to use while inpatient– Not being detected by Urine Drug

Screen– Some patients told staff they were

using “Kronic”, but staff were unaware what this was

• Several calls on slang terms / product brand names:– Blue Neo, Charlotte’s Drug, Fuse, NRG-1, Bath

Salts / Plant Food, PV• We spend a lot of time with Google

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs

• Most common calls were for:– “What is the current legal status of ……”

• Difficult for us to answer, because we often didn’t know either!

• We had to keep an eye on the what the law said, but also on the way it was being applied in practice

• This involved regular contact with our friends in the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Health

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs

• We also have received a number of calls regarding various plants– Hawaiian Baby Woodrose– Salvia divinorum– DMT

• Random anecdotes such as:– Worker in regional Queensland reported that

during recent Schoolies Week celebrations a group of young people had purchased a herbal product from a shop. The young people reported that they were advised by the person in the shop that the herbal product works best when mixed with alcohol. All were hospitalised for severe nausea / vomiting.

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs

• Lots of random anecdotes such as:– A service which was treating someone who’d been

a daily user of (suspected) MDPV for approximately 12 months

– As the service was unaware of what MDPV was, they’d been utilising opiate detox protocols to guide their treatment

Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs

• We have a credibility gap that we need to overcome

• Young people are sceptical about previous drug messages which haven’t matched their lived experience of substance use

• Media reporting tends to be hysterical which contributes to the credibility gap

• We need to re-build credibility by:– Accepting pleasure seeking and other positive

reasons for substance use– Acknowledging the actual lived experience of

substance use for many young people– Focusing on realistic potential harms, not just

“worst case scenarios”

Tips for workers

Tips for workers• As well as asking your clients about the

traditional drugs people use, you might want to add an extra question like “Do you use any herbal supplements, or herbal highs? Party Pills? Legal highs?”

• Get the brand name (you can google it later on)

• Ask what it was sold to them as, eg “legal pot” or “just like ecstasy”

• Ask for a description of the subjective effects, eg Stimulant? Depressant? Hallucinogen?

• Ask if it was like any other substance they’ve used

• Ask if they experienced any negative health effects

• Advise of the risks involved in using unknown substances

For more information:(07) 3837 5621

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