A lifetime paying for legal highs

Fiona Beale is one of the lucky ones. A self-confessed "massive pot head" in her younger days, she wasted no time in embracing synthetic cannabis. But now she's escaped, and she's ringing the alarm bell as loudly as she can to save other potential victims from making the same mistake.

Adding legal highs to a mix of cannabis and methamphetamine made the effect of the other drugs last longer, she said, but the risks were enormous.

She is quite open about her mental state when she was a user, but with professional help she came to realise that the drugs she was taking were affecting her physical and mental state. She had become psychotic and unpredictable.

Fiona was brought up by whanau in Kaikohe. She moved away in her teens, but returned to visit her family a couple of years ago. And her family quickly saw that she was not in a sound state of mind, and was addicted to illicit drugs. Seeing that she was in desperate need of help, they took her to the Northpoint Trust in Kaikohe.

Two years on, Fiona is a success story. She is drug free. She has also now given up smoking, and is more than 50 days smoke-free. And now that she's turned her life around, she is keen to give back to the community and to help others.

She is now on the board of Te Tokoroa Whai Ora Network, a community organisation that provides a consumer/tangata whaiora perspective to the planning, delivery and evaluation of mental health services.

Fiona is totally opposed to the sale of synthetic 'legal highs' but recognises their attraction for young people who can't get anything else, and see them as cheap, easy to get, and above all legal. There are no legal consequences for the user.

She is concerned that the effect of the drugs on young people has not been fully assessed, however. She knows first-hand how highly addictive they are, how they affect the neurological system, and that the user is none the wiser about the damage they do. She refuses to cross the threshold of any business that sells synthetic drugs, even if she likes other products sold there -it's a matter of principle.

She also understands how upsetting it is for a community to discover that synthetic highs are being sold, especially when those communities are trying to do positive things for their people.

Earlier this month police visited three Kaikohe businesses that stood accused of selling synthetic cannabis. All three owners denied selling the drugs, but Far North prevention officer Senior Sergeant Chris McLellan said any information received from the public regarding the illegal sale of the drugs would be acted on immediately, and evidence would result in prosecution. Those who sell the drugs illegally face fines of up to $40,000.

The Northpoint Trust says it has had two recent clients who claimed to be suffering from drug-induced psychosis. The trust is concerned that some young people will spend the rest of their lives paying for their mistake, the drugs having an especially damaging effect on the maturing brain.