RELATED LINKS » Have your say » Subscribe to Archivestuff

Pregnant teen told legal party pills safe, now in hospital

Speaking from her hospital bed yesterday, the young woman, 18, said she was angry that staff at a Christchurch shop selling the drugs had assured her the pills were safe and even recommended she take a second lot after she started feeling unwell.

The shop's manager, however, denies his staff sold the drugs to the woman, who is eight months pregnant, claiming his shop is the target of a dirty-tricks campaign.

The woman said she took the drugs, bought at the shop on Sunday, after asking several times if they were safe to take during pregnancy.

"They said it was safe and I thought because they were herbal, they would be fine," said the woman, who asked not to be named.

At first, the drugs, known as Rave Gold and costing $40 for a packet of four pills, made her feel "really great and really friendly". As the evening wore on, however, she found she was unable to sleep and by 9am on Monday she was agitated, suffering stomach pains and having trouble breathing.

After calling several pharmacies, which she said were unable to offer her any advice, she returned to the shop where staff recommended she take another dose of Rave Gold. They then offered her a dose of nitrous oxide or laughing gas and a further two pills of a different type, she said.

She eventually returned to a friend's house but continued to deteriorate and was eventually rushed to hospital by ambulance.

"I felt so sick. I thought my heart was going to explode. I thought I was going to die," she said.

After treatment, the woman yesterday urged other pregnant women to steer clear of the drugs, despite the advice of shop staff.

"They are just in it for the money. I really believed and trusted them," she said.

The health of the woman's baby was yesterday unclear, as she had not undergone a scan after her ordeal.

The shop manager said his shop had a strict policy that pregnant women should not take the drugs. Signs in the shop reinforced this policy, he said.

"I believe this is a complete fabrication. I refute this completely. Business is just picking up and doing well, but if people want to run us down it's up to them."

The manager said he believed the shop was the victim of a "dirty tricks" campaign by its competitors.

The doctor who treated the young woman, consultant emergency medicine specialist Dr Martin Than, said the advice by shop staff described by the woman appeared "fairly flippant".

"These substances have not been studied and I don't think they should be marketed by anybody as being safe. They could be safe, but they may not be," he said.

The symptoms suffered by the young woman were typical of many patients needing treatment at the emergency department after taking the drugs, Than said.

The emergency department has reported seeing up to six people a weekend suffering symptoms associated with taking the drugs.

National Poisons Centre medical toxicologist Dr John Fountain said the centre had increasing concerns about the number of inquiries it was receiving from people taking the drugs and from doctors round the country.

There was a great deal of misleading information about the drugs, including the "herbal" description, he said. The main ingredient is benzylpiperazine (BZP), a chemical which has an amphetamine effect.

"Our advice would be not to (use the drugs). We simply do not know enough about the toxicity and we don't know what the long-term effects are," Fountain said.

Under current laws, herbal drugs can be sold legally, although proposed changes put to Parliament this month seek to classify the pills in a new class, category D, creating opportunities for greater mandatory controls.

Christchurch City Council environmental monitoring team leader Willis Heney said as far as he was aware, the council had no powers to regulate retailers wanting to sell herbal drugs.

"There's certainly concern, but I would think monitoring would need to be on a national level, not local," he said.