Dovetail is a Queensland based service which provides clinical advice and professional support to workers and services across Queensland who engage with young people affected by alcohol and other drug use. This presentation will provide an overview of the types of requests for support received from workers across Queensland who are encountering young people who use emerging psychoactive substances. Some of the specific questions Dovetail has received will be described, as well as the advice that we have for frontline staff working in this area. Tips for assessing for the use of emerging psychoactive substances will be provided, including the types of questions workers can use to help identify emerging psychoactive substance use amongst their clients.

1. Emerging Psychoactive
Substances: What do
workers need to know?
Cameron Francis
Social Worker

2. Firstly, what is Dovetail?
Dovetail provides clinical advice
and professional support to
workers, services and
communities across Queensland
who engage with young people
affected by alcohol and drug use

4. Service Practice Improvement Toolkit
3 Good Practice Guides
• 3 more to come…
– Working with Families and Significant Others
– Improving Services and Service Systems
– Culturally Secure Practice with Indigenous Young People

5. General Support & Assistance
• By phone
• By email
• In person

6. •
Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging
Drugs
Majority of calls were regarding
synthetic cannabinoids
• Many of these calls were
questions about legal status:
“Where are they accessing these
things from?”
• Several calls from mental health
units regarding inpatients:
– Psychotic symptoms
– Continuing to use while inpatient
– Not being detected by Urine Drug
Screen
– Some patients told staff they
were using “Kronic”, but staff
were unaware what this was

7. Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging
Drugs
• Several calls on slang terms / product brand
names:
– Blue Neo, Charlotte’s Drug, Fuse, NRG-1, Bath
Salts / Plant Food, PV
• We spend a lot of time with Google

8. Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging
Drugs
• Most common calls were for:
– “What is the current legal status of ……”
• Difficult for us to answer, because we often
didn’t know either!
• We had to keep an eye on the what the law
said, but also on the way it was being applied
in practice
• This involved regular contact with our friends
in the Queensland Police Service and
Queensland Health

9. Calls to Dovetail for Info on
Emerging Drugs
• We also have received a number of
calls regarding various plants
– Hawaiian Baby Woodrose
– Salvia divinorum
– DMT

10. Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs
• Random anecdotes such as:
– Worker in regional Queensland reported that
during recent Schoolies Week celebrations a
group of young people had purchased a herbal
product from a shop. The young people reported
that they were advised by the person in the shop
that the herbal product works best when mixed
with alcohol. All were hospitalised for severe
nausea / vomiting.

11. Calls to Dovetail for Info on Emerging Drugs
• Lots of random anecdotes such as:
– A service which was treating someone who’d been
a daily user of (suspected) MDPV for
approximately 12 months
– As the service was unaware of what MDPV
was, they’d been utilising opiate detox protocols to
guide their treatment

12. Tips for workers
• We have a credibility gap that we need to
overcome
• Young people are sceptical about previous
drug messages which haven’t matched their
lived experience of substance use
• Media reporting tends to be hysterical which
contributes to the credibility gap
• We need to re-build credibility by:
– Accepting pleasure seeking and other positive
reasons for substance use
– Acknowledging the actual lived experience of
substance use for many young people
– Focusing on realistic potential harms, not just

13. Tips for workers
• As well as asking your clients about the
traditional drugs people use, you might want
to add an extra question like “Do you use any
herbal supplements, or herbal highs? Party
Pills? Legal highs?”
• Get the brand name (you can google it later
on)
• Ask what it was sold to them as, eg “legal pot”
or “just like ecstasy”
• Ask for a description of the subjective
effects, eg Stimulant? Depressant?
Hallucinogen?

14. For more information:
(07) 3837 5621
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