Internet and autumn blamed for bad drug-trips

Dr Tonia Nicholson says there is no way to predict the effect of eating magic mushrooms. Photo /Sarah Ivey

A Waikato Hospital doctor says the increased incidence of "bad trips" among young people is related to late autumn and can be partly blamed on the internet.

Dr Tonia Nicholson tried to revive 23-year-old Hamilton woman Te Awhina Hawera last Thursday night after the student had consumed magic mushrooms with friends.

Ms Hawera's tangi was held in Tuakau at the weekend and she was buried yesterday.

She had lived the past decade with a transplanted heart.

Dr Nicholson said consumption of the mushrooms could cause a mild increase in the body's heart rate, but usually it was not life-threatening.

"I've never seen anybody die from them before."

The cooler, damper weather signalled a busier time for A&E medical staff dealing with drug-related problems, she said.

"I know this is the time of year that mushrooms are growing because the patients are starting to come in," Dr Nicholson said.

"We see them every year. Like LSD, sometimes people have a nice trip, sometimes they don't."

Working part-time, she had treated four patients in the past two weeks for the effects of magic mushrooms.

One became so frightened of the images he was seeing that he had taken himself to the emergency department. "The first two patients I saw [a fortnight ago] came in agitated, aggressive and requiring a police escort. They came in very combative and confused, potentially a danger to themselves and other people."

All four patients had been young: one was aged only 15.

Feedback indicated the youths were getting information about the drug from the internet, which made identification of the fungi easy.

"Part of the trouble is that you can't measure the potency of what you are taking, it is not just down to the quantity," Dr Nicholson said. "Some might be much more toxic than others."

Patients were commonly given a sedative that could put them to sleep until the effects of the mushrooms wore off. The cause of Ms Hawera's death is yet to be established, but it appears her life was limited.

The clinical director of Auckland City Hospital's cardiovascular service, Peter Ruygrok, said the average time a heart transplant patient could expect to live after surgery was 11 years.