Party drug use is increasing at staggering proportions and those taking them are swallowing cocktails of pills not only to get high, but to come down as well, an international conference on youth and drugs has been told. 

Drug experts from Australia addressed the fourth International Conference on Drugs and Young People in Wellington this week, on party drug use. 

South Australian Drug and Alcohol Services Council spokesman Steve Lymb has been operating a programme in Adelaide aimed at helping young people in the dance party scene. 

He described an increased use of drugs like amphetamines, Ecstasy, ketamine and GHB in the dance scene and expected the trend would be the same in New Zealand. 

Those in that scene saw it as "culturally acceptable to use party drugs when going out", he said. 

But not only were users taking cocktails of drugs to get high, they were using more to reduce the effects of coming down afterward. 

Studies conducted in Australia showed users were aged between 16 and 36 with those aged between 20 and 29 the highest users.  Ninety-one per cent of drug users surveyed said they mixed Ecstasy use with other drugs, and 89 per cent said they took more drugs to help them come down. 

Trends in Australia had seen the use of pure Ecstasy diminish, to be replaced with other types of drugs.  Though people thought they might be taking Ecstasy it was more likely that it was a mixture of substances, Mr Lymb said. 

Drugs sold in Australian clubs and at dance parties as Ecstasy often contained combinations of substances and drug testing kits sometimes failed to pick up the difference, he said. 

Monash University medical student Shaun Baxter, who had conducted a study on Ecstasy use in Melbourne, said party drug use was growing at a "huge rate", but many of the messages that drug educators and governments tried to get across were misaimed. 

Drug messages should be targeted at the culture around the drug use rather than treated as a "pharmacological problem", he said.  The message should be about minimising drug use rather than saying "don't".