Tragic Tales from a Laos Bar: The Dangers of Overseas Adventures

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Welcome to Why Is It So? Your last defence for common sense with your co-hosts

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Paul Zammett and Vince Locizzano.

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Welcome to Why Is It So? My name is Paul and along with my co-host Vince,

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we would like to offer a tribute to the young women who lost their lives through

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methanol poisoning at a bar in Laos.

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Well, Vince, we're here again to have another little chat.

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It's been a while, Paul, actually. It has been a while. There's been lots happening

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in the world? Too much, actually. It's funny.

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People ask me what I do in my retirement. I don't get enough time now.

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I don't know how I got time into the past to do what I had to do.

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But anyway, it's been good.

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So, yeah, just getting close to Christmas.

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It's amazing how the year has just flown past and we're now,

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what, about a month away.

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Yesterday. or yesterday was exactly one month away from Christmas Day.

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Okay. Well, you're giving away the date now. But there has been lots happening

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since. I think we last spoke before the AFL grand final here in Melbourne.

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I don't think we've spoken since then. No, we've done one since then.

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Have we? Yeah, we did the… Ah, the Society Murders. Yes.

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The Society Murders, that's right. And, yeah, that was pretty well.

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And I also did one with my brother about travelling around Australia in a caravan. Yeah.

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Got rid of his boats and everything else. Yes.

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I guess I was referring to myself being with you, seeing I'm really the star of this podcast.

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But hang on, I did your analogy that you couldn't make it because you were a bit busy. Yes.

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Shifting into your new house and all that sort of thing. Yes.

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So it was okay. I think people have accepted the fact that you were not.

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Anyway, but something that is a little bit more serious and it relates to the young,

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I was going to say girls, but let's be honest, the young adult,

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where they go overseas and they go in the hope of having a great holiday and

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everything else seems to fall apart from what they know at home and how they act at home.

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Because this is a holiday, we're going to have some fun, we're going to have

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a drink, we're going to have a party.

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It's great. And unfortunately, what they do at home is really not taken any notice of.

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They wait until they get there, they do all these things without care.

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And I suppose they don't actually think about it, but when you think about it,

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at least they would be thinking in the sense that our laws here in Australia,

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much harder than they are in places like Bali and some of the islands. Tired England. Yeah.

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And so they think they're protected where they're actually not.

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They're wide open. Well, Vince, I actually read an article with the Herald Sun

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on the Thursday, the 21st, and again on a further episode to it on the 23rd of this month.

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And I'd like to give credit to Brook Gubit Craith in Laos. and Stephen Drill,

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also in Laos, and the two people here in Australia, Caitlin Smith and Charlotte Carter.

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These four reporters, who write for the Herald Sun newspaper here in Melbourne,

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had a couple of good reports on this tragedy.

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I thought it was very interesting, and I actually had a look at it and read

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it, and I thought it was very good, and I have done a small pricey of it.

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If you are interested in having a complete read of it, get hold of the Herald

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Sun here in Victoria and read it. I think it's a good article.

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And basically, this part here, the British backpacker who drank at the same

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Laos hostel as Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones has revealed that she suffered

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a methanol poisoning two days before the Australian teenagers were struck down.

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Miss Bowles, 19, died in Bangkok Hospital on the Friday and Miss Jones also passed...

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Unfortunately, the next day. At least 14 people have been hospitalised and up

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to today at least eight more people have died from the UK, USA,

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Netherlands and Denmark.

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Nana Backpackers Host had been serving free spirits at happy hours between 8 and 10pm.

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The bar on the riverfront At Van Vienne, a backpacker hotspot has a standard

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drinks list, but also has a printed hardcopy drugs menu.

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The drugs on offer include opium, ketamine, ecstasy and marijuana.

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While balloons filled with a high-inducing gas, they were also for sale.

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When the bartender was asked what the drugs cost, he answered 400,000 K.

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The Laos Cup varies every day to the Australian dollar, and on that day,

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the Australian dollar was 14,257k.

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So one gram of drugs was worth approximately $28 Australian.

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It's no wonder that people go over there to party.

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Bo Morris Football Club, where Bianca and Holly both play, gathered for an emotional

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vigil when they were notified of the tragedy.

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And club president Mr Heath said in a statement on social media that both girls

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were much-loved players during their time in 2021-2022.

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And the Mintane girls' grandma principal, Natalie Charles, also paid tribute

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to their former student,

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adding that Bianca was a beautiful young woman, in every sense of the word,

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who lived her life with a great spirit and unbridled enthusiasm.

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Well, let's be frank. I guess it's a trap for young Australian people,

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both boys and girls that are heading overseas, to think that everywhere is the same as it is here.

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And that by and large in this country, you can go to any nightclub or any bar

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or any restaurant and feel confident that you're not going to be poisoned when

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you order their food or drink.

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Now, it's not necessarily the case in a lot of these countries.

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You've just got to be so careful and so vigilant.

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Even something like drinking water out of a tap can make you really, really sick.

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Or buying food off these vendors that are on the side of the road can make you really sick.

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There used to be a thing with the water out there called a barley belly.

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Yeah, well, that's right. People still get it today. And, I mean,

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the advice is pretty common, I would have thought, to say don't drink that water.

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Always buy water in a bottle, in a sealed bottle. Same with alcoholic drinks

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and all that sort of thing.

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So these two Australian girls who unfortunately lost their lives just in the

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last few days after fighting the battle that they did, after being poisoned with methanol.

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And also, the other six people so far, there's been a young guy,

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an American guy. I think a lawyer from England, a 18-year-old,

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a couple of Danish people.

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So yeah, we're referring to all, but let me just say, we are not putting the

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blame on the girls or the people we're talking about. No, no,

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no. They are there to have a good time.

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It's not their fault that it's happened. I think it's pretty clear.

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We're making the point. It's not their fault that it's happened,

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but like anything, You've got to be careful before you head into the forest

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because, you know, while the forest may look beautiful from a distance,

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you know, once you're in there, there's, there can be a few bears hiding behind tree stumps.

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And there's a lot of people that fall victim to, I guess, certain practices

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that happen in these countries.

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And we've even seen Australian tourists not come back from trips to places like.

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You know, Croatia or Serbia or Bosnia and places like that.

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It's not only one place that's like that. It's our laws and our protection of

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our citizens is a lot different and more severe than it is with faces overseas.

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These two young girls that were, you know, the Australian girls,

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I believe there's another four or five Australian girls that copped it as well.

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But fortunately, they didn't take it as much. Not to the same extent,

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yeah. They were being given free shots, of course, one after the other.

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Well, these girls were essentially partying after finishing school, I think, for the year.

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I think they played football together down in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne

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and part of the same team.

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So it was just sort of like, I guess, a dream holiday that they planned.

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And, you know, sometimes you've got to do your homework on these places before

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you go there, whether it's Thailand, whether it's, I think it was Laos that this happened.

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Yeah, the two women we're talking about here, of course, is Holly Bowles.

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Yes, Holly Bowles. And Bianca James.

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Yes, I'd hate to think how the family feel and we send them our condolences.

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Well, I mean, the parents must be in absolute grief but also probably questioning

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and being harsh on themselves about, you know, what could I have done better

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or differently or should have warned them about this or we should have done our homework on that.

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I guess this is the message out of today's chat is,

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you know, if you are thinking of going over there or if you have young kids

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that are looking to travel for a bit of fun,

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you've just got to do your homework on these places and be very,

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very careful what you buy, where you buy it, who you hang around with,

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which groups of people that sometimes even seduce these young people into their

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places, and then all of a sudden,

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they find that it's not what they thought it was. Yeah, yeah.

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Look, in this particular pub or bar, if you like to call it,

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they're actually given a menu of drugs you can buy there.

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We're not talking about the methanol section, but this is a separate piece of paper.

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They order a drink and they get a menu, which has got, in fact,

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I've got it in front of me, two, four, six.

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There's eight different drugs that you can actually buy to go with your drink.

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One of them is ketamine. Ketamine, which is a very, very dangerous drug.

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They use it here in Australia for surgery.

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And they're very – I've had that drug in an operation.

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And I have had these hallucinations, which really I didn't know myself.

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And I didn't know I could be as bad as I was due to this sort of thing.

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And it was – it's a very strong drug.

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I don't understand how these countries often have laws,

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very strict laws about taking drugs into the country where you can even be charged

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at the airport if you try and bring something in, and yet these bars are selling

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it off a menu in the same place.

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I think this case actually is the government has looked away from,

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I'm sure they knew what was going on there.

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They're trying to find out exactly who it was and how it happened.

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But all we can say is beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

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Well, true enough. And, you know, it's tragic what happened to those two girls.

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But anyway, as we come up to Christmas and a lot of people are about to take

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holidays through late December and I guess some parts of January when it's summer

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here in Australia, you know, again, you've just got to be careful wherever you go. Please take note.

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With people who are going overseas, especially your kids and even friends,

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I mean, just a reminder that just be aware of what's happening. Enjoy the time.

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Have a good time. No, I'm not telling you to have a good time,

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but someone just sort of warns them a little bit and says, just keep your eyes out.

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I think probably the best comparison to this sort of thing in our own country

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is often at these rock concerts and places like that where young people go to

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and there's often drugs being passed around and, you know,

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drinks that might be spiked with other things in them.

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That's where, again, young people have got to be very careful if they go to

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such concerts not to mix with the wrong crowd, not to accept drinks from strangers,

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not to, you know, fall for all of these drugs just because your mates might be taking them.

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Hey, it's quite okay to say no.

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And you've just got to be strong enough and mentally aware enough to say,

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no, this is not something I want to do.

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Yeah, we've been warned at times where you don't leave an open drink to go to

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the toilet or go and see a friend on the other side of the bar.

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If you leave that drink out of your sight for less than 10 seconds,

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throw it out and go to your new one.

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It's just not worth the answer. I know, but look, you know, half the time a

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lot of these kids do start getting affected by the alcohol.

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Quite legally sold, you know, it might be drinks like champagne or beer or spirits

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or whatever, and they start getting tips and they'd lose their faculties,

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they'd lose their sense of awareness of what's going on.

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Beer is the best one, if there is a good one, but you don't leave it open within

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the eyesight of yourself.

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You just keep looking at that. You don't sort of get distracted talking to someone

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behind you or someone else's, something in your drink.

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Like inevitably during most summer holiday periods, we hear about things like

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boating accidents, you know, swimming or drowning type accidents,

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especially around surf beaches and around rocky coastline.

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Yeah, that sort of thing is quite prevalent around the summer.

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And as I said, some of these concerts where people go to and maybe the heat starts to affect them.

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But I think, fortunately, in our country, we're not as badly affected by things

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that happened in Laos and Thailand last week.

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So let's hope it remains that way because we'd hope to see our country go down that path.

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Just before we get out of here on this particular topic, there's some good news

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just broken that we heard, and I thought we might just add it to the end of this here.

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Apparently, there's been eight people who have been detained to be questioned

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on what happened and how it happened, and hopefully we'll get some answers in the near future.

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Vince, thanks again. We've got to go.

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See, this time I don't have to apologise. It's not going to be there.

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All right. We'll see you for the Christmas episode. We will.

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All the best. Have a look to all our listeners then. Goodbye.

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Bye. Have a good day, Vince. Thank you for listening to Why Is It So?

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Make sure you tune in to our next episode.

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Remember, it's your last defence for common sense.