Incident ‘highlights dangers of drugs’
Dr Des Corrigan said initial reports suggested that either high purity cocaine or cocaine mixed with alcohol may have caused the severe reactions at the house party in Ballybeg.
“I think it’s more consistent with either high-dose cocaine or cocaine plus alcohol. It seems more compatible with that, but you have to expect the unexpected with drugs,” said Dr Corrigan, chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NCAD).
“It’s very difficult to comment when you don’t know whether in fact it is cocaine or not.”
Dr Corrigan said: “The initial reports highlight the increasing element of polydrug use or people using combinations of drugs, where sometimes it is almost impossible to know how the individual drugs will react with one another.
“Particularly when alcohol is mixed with other drugs, the least you could say is that alcohol tends to magnify the effects of drugs. Mixing drugs carries an additional risk above the individual drugs themselves.
“With alcohol, cocaine stays in the body so much longer, than cocaine on its own, increasing the risks on the heart.”
Investigating gardaí would not confirm yesterday the substance found at the party, and only ruled out the presence of any “toxic” substances.
Superintendent David Sheehan said it was “quite possibly” an overdose that had put two young men in a very critical condition at Waterford Regional Hospital.
He said it was “possibly more to do with the quantity” that was in the substance taken, suggesting the purity of the drug may have been high.
Cocaine samples tested by the Forensic Science Laboratory between 1998 and 2004 found purity levels ranged from as low as 7% to as high as 74%.
Dr Corrigan said street cocaine was usually about 20%-30% pure and was heavily diluted with sugar-derivatives, such as mannitol, which would not be considered dangerous.
However, he said cocaine was also being cut with anaesthetics such as lignocaine, which also affected the heart
But he said there were no studies as to how lignocaine reacted with cocaine.
Supt Sheehan said that when gardaí arrived at the house, there were awful scenes of “people having seizures”.
Dr Corrigan said: “That would be typical of cocaine overdose or a combination of cocaine and alcohol, it would be suggestive of that.”
An NACD report on cocaine said: “Cocaine affects heart rhythms leading to possible heart attacks; it can lead to chest pain, raised blood pressure, respiratory failure, strokes and seizures.
“Cardiac complications are the most common cause of death among cocaine users and can occur after acute or chronic use.”
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