Wellington bar owner Matt McLaughlin is welcoming a major police seizure of the highly addictive and highly dangerous GBL, but it’s also seen staff at his bars be on high alert.
“In the wrong hands it could be a real worry for our industry and for our patrons,” he said.
“Just knowing that that drug is out there, I think our staff are going to be even more diligent in looking for predatory behaviour.”
Yesterday, police seized over 400 litres of the recreational drug, the largest seizure on record for GBL, after a joint investigation with Customs over several months.
Today, two men appeared in the Wellington District Court facing multiple drug charges.
They were remanded in jail until another court hearing on Monday.
The drug’s presence in the community, and reports from Wellington Hospital of six patients overdosing on the drug every weekend since the start of October, has concerned McLaughlin.
The bar owner said since the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, he’s seen an increase in anti-social and harmful behaviour in Wellington’s bar precinct.
“There’s seems to be a lot more pre-loading… whether that’s drink or drugs, we’re seeing a lot more people intoxicated on the street, we’re seeing a lot more issues on the street… it is something we’re working really closely with the police, with the council and also with Grant Robertson, our local MP, to try and help sort out,” he said.
“We want Wellington to be known as a safe place to come and party, it is a safe place to party and come and enjoy yourselves but you know, there’s just that little underlying factor that’s a little niggly at the moment that we want to try and help solve.”
Police have received no reports of fantasy being used to facilitate sexual assault in Wellington, but this is still an area of concern for authorities.
“This is a clear, colourless liquid which is in small volume, it’s very easy to be used for date rape and one of the main reasons to get it off the street is to make it unavailable for those perpetrators,” Wellington Hospital clinical toxicologist Dr Paul Quigley told 1 NEWS.
The drug is difficult for hospitals to detect, other than through honest patient disclosure.
“There is no requirement from the Ministry of Health to collect drug-related data, there’s no particular structure or format,” Dr Quigley said.
“The problem with GHB (GBL is converted to GHB within the body) is there is no test for it that can be available in the hospital system, we break the drug down very rapidly so unless the sample was taken and immediately chilled or frozen, which would be very difficult to do in a busy emergency department, it will be gone,” he said.
Substance tester Know Your Stuff NZ has seen the drug at festivals around the country, with increased use starting a couple of years ago.
Managing director Wendy Allison said the drug is even more dangerous when mixed with alcohol consumption.
“They act on the same receptors in the brain and they exacerbate the effects of each other so that would be the biggest risk we would see, slurred speech, lower inhibitions, leading to being drowsy, unconsciousness and then stopping breathing,” she said.
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