An Augusta mum fears it's just a matter of time before someone dies from using legal herbs available online after her son lapsed into a coma after smoking products he purchased.
Marlene said she found her 39-year-old son collapsed in the bathroom of their family home earlier this week after he used herbs he legally purchased online.
![New laws to ban the manufacturing, selling, supplying or promoting synthetic drugs were introduced in WA in 2015.](/web/20170322040747im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/j/m/3/1/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu4w0o.png/1486092324090.jpg)
"I found him in the bathroom convulsing, unconscious and barely able to breathe so I had to stand in there and keep his airway open until the ambulance came," she told Radio 6PR on Friday morning.
"When the ambulance came he stopped breathing for a short period but when we got him into Augusta Hospital his Glasgow Coma Scale was three.
"The doctors worked on him. We nearly lost him."
Marlene, who is a retired nurse, said her son was transferred to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital by the Royal Flying Doctor Service, where he remained in a coma for more than 24-hours.
She said her son came out of the coma on Thursday night, but feared if she didn't have medical training her son would be dead.
"If they are out of their own and they don't have caring parents that can watch over them then I fear for their lives," she said.
![Preston Bridge died in 2013 after falling from a balcony in Scarborough after it had what was believed to be synthetic ...](/web/20170322040747im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/4/w/6/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu4w0o.png/1486092324090.jpg)
"They wouldn't be in that situation and they wouldn't know what to do and they would most certainly lose their child."
Marlene said it was ridiculous the herbs were classed as "legal".
"They may be classed as legal but they are toxic substances and If I hadn't been here my son would be dead now," she said.
"I feel that it's a shocking thing that young people have access to these toxic substances which I believe can be more toxic than the drugs you can buy on the street corner.
"There are going to be a lot of young people that can have access to these things and they will die.
"I don't want anyone else to go through the heartache that this is causing our family and it's destroying my son's life who is a wonderful young man."
In 2013, Churchlands Senior High School student Preston Bridge, 16, died after he fell from a balcony at a Scarborough Hotel after he had taken two tablets of what was believed to be synthetic LSD brought online.
Dr Gary Wilson, who has treated many drug-affected patients in the Margaret River and Augusta region, said more regulation was needed to ban the type of herbs Ms Marlene's son brought online.
"We do need to regulate the intake of these things... the availability of these drugs from illegal oxycodone to these herbs, they all come via the post," Dr Wilson told Radio 6PR.
"I don't know how you actually track down and check every piece of mail that comes into this country because I do know Marlene's son simply went to the post office and picked them up.
Legislation to stop people manufacturing, supplying or selling synthetic drugs containing psychoactive substances was introduced by the Barnett government in late 2015.
Under the new passage in Misuse of Drugs Amendment (Psychoactive Substances) Bill 2015, people found to be manufacturing, selling or supplying psychoactive substances will have penalties of $48,000 or four years' jail.
But Dr Wilson said more restrictions are needed.
"It's very hard to regulate these things but we do need more regulation and innovation is always followed by regulation.
"But because they are legal people think they are safe."