Drug search at elite school
An academically selective Perth high school has become the centre of an investigation into the suspected overdose of a 16-year-old boarding student at a residential college at the weekend.
Organised crime squad officers carried out raids on locations linked to a 15-year-old boy and located 11 tabs of synthetic LSD, believed to be the NBOMe compound.
The Perth Modern School student is believed to have been in possession of 16 tabs before supplying the 16-year-old student and three of his roommates at the City Beach Residential College with an unknown number of tabs.
Each of the Year 11 and 12 students are understood to have consumed at least one tab, though police would not speculate on whether the unaccounted fifth tab had been taken as a second hit of the drug.
The four boys were taken to hospital early on Sunday, with one being placed in an induced coma.
Police attended the accused boy's Subiaco school yesterday and searched his locker as well as other belongings for any sign of the drugs.
He was charged with three counts of sell a prohibited drug, one count of possessing cannabis and one count of possessing prohibited paraphernalia.
He will appear in court on March 28.
Specific charges will be finalised once the tabs have been analysed by the ChemCentre.
Det-Insp Chris Adams, from the serious and organised crime division, said the synthetic LSD the boys were suspected to have taken had potentially deadly consequences.
"It is a dangerous drug because you simply don't know what you're taking . . . put simply you just don't put that type of synthetic chemical in your body," he said. "Particularly the NBOMe component, which is known to be 100 times stronger than methamphetamine."
The 16-year-old boy who had to be placed in an induced coma was discharged yesterday from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.
His three friends also had treatment at the hospital but were released on Sunday.
Country High School Hostels Authority chief executive Sharyn O'Neill, who is also Education Department director-general, said the four students who took the drug would be suspended.
