Anne Shortall, who is representing the class action on behalf of Melbourne firm Arnold Thomas and Becker, said some of the clients also developed compulsive sexual behaviour. "The drugs mimic the effect of dopamine in the brain, which is a pleasure-seeking type chemical and can cause addictive-type behaviour," Ms Shortall said. "Most of the clients had an obsessive pathological urge to gamble that they couldn't control, and that has led to huge financial loss and family breakdowns." Ms Shortall said one of the drugs was still on the market and now carried a warning about the risk of developing obsessive behaviours, but customers who bought it before 2009 were not made aware of the dangers.
Queensland pensioners Alan Burrows and Alan Clayton both claim they started binge-gambling on poker machines after they took Cabaser. Mr Burrows, 63, lost $300,000 while Mr Clayton, 76, lost up to $100,000. The gambling allegedly ended when they stopped taking the drug. Mr Burrows, who lives north of Brisbane with his wife Gaye, 64, says he began borrowing against the equity in his house, which was paid off, when he started taking a generic form of Cabaser. Over seven years his bank kept giving him more money and credit cards until the pair had to sell their house to pay off debts.
"I started doing something I'd never done before and go and gamble on pokies ... almost every day," Mr Burrows said. "Once I started I had to keep going (by withdrawing money every hour) until I couldn't get any more money. It was a compulsion to do it. You become really devious, disgusting." Mr Clayton said he did not know what had happened to him. "It was mechanical. I had no feeling at all. I had no worries at all," he said. A spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Association said the drugs now had warnings that compulsive behaviour, including gambling and increased libido, was a potential side effect.
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