DRUG dealers are adding crushed mothballs to illicit substances such as methamphetamine and cocaine to increase the quantity, says community-based juvenile worker Masilina Laisani Singh.
Ms Singh said the end result would be fake drugs, however, their side effects were just as dangerous as using illicit substances with a higher purity level.
“To add to the volume, they crush mothballs and then you add to methamphetamine or ice to actually make up the volume to increase the quantity,” she said.
“It’s doing more damage. That’s what they call fake and people are desperate, because they don’t have enough money to pay for the next drug or pill, so they actually resort to this.”
Ms Singh said another form of drug use is chroming, but this is practiced mostly in Australia.
“Young people take deodorants or aerosol spray cans, and they spray it in plastic bags then inhale,” she said.
Ms Singh called for harsher penalties for those targeting vulnerable members of the public to peddle drugs.
“If, for example, you give them a three-year sentence, they’re going to go inside, they’re in prison, three years. The taxpayers are paying for their meals every day. They’re eating well, sleeping well.
“The ones down there at the bottom of the food chain, they’re taking the drugs on a daily basis, they are the ones withering away in society.”
The Commissioner of Police, Rusiate Tudravu, confirmed the report.
“Past tests have confirmed the presence of camphor and this is indicative of what I had mentioned earlier in that there is low-grade unprofessional cooking of methamphetamine in a small scale, as well as the use of other harmful chemicals which is why we have been warning people of its dangers,” he said.
