Michael Peterson (surfer) - Illicit Drug Use

Illicit Drug Use

Peterson first tried heroin during 1974 and increased his involvement with the drug in 1975. It has been suggested that a vacuum (slightly similar to a "demand vacuum") had been created in the local drug market as a result of the Queensland Police's attempts to eradicate the Gold Coast's marijuana trade in the operations of previous years. Consequently, a significant number of surfers in the area experimented with heroin and then fatally overdosed on the drug, with professional surfer, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, having written about the loss of twelve friends in such a manner.

Peterson was phobic regarding hypodermic needles and his preferred mode of administration for heroin was insufflation (commonly known as "snorting"). Tommy Peterson, who also experienced dependence upon the drug over numerous years, has stated a belief that his brother's fear of injections led to a greatly reduced overdose risk, due to the limited amount of heroin that can be used when employing the insufflation method.

During Peterson's heroin-using period, his schizophrenia gradually worsened and his friends reported increasingly erratic behaviour, hostility towards others (including friends) and paranoid delusions in which he believd that others were plotting against him. In retrospect, the symptoms exhibited by Peterson have been identified as typical of the surfer's mental disorder; at the time, though, friends and acquaintances attributed the unusual behaviour to excessive drug use. Friends have since expressed regret at the low level of support they offered Peterson at the time.