Next month thousands of teenagers will head to celebrate on the Gold Coast, where over the weekend, 16 young people, feared to have taken a new hallucinogen called flakka, were seen exhibiting bizarre and dangerous behaviour.

Eight people were taken to hospital in the early hours of Monday, including three men from a Surfers Paradise high rise, which Nine News reported were Victorian footballers, who had been yelling and jumping on furniture. One stopped breathing before he was rushed to hospital.

Elsewhere, young people were reportedly swimming into a canal, walking into traffic, having seizures, and acting aggressively.

Queensland paramedic Stephen Burns said it was the largest single cohort of similar drug overdoses he had seen in 24 years working in the area.

Geoff Munro, national policy manager for the Alcohol and Drug Foundation said flakka was "essentially a research chemical" that had been untested on humans.

He said it was a "powerful, euphoric stimulant" and "potent amphetamine" similar to ecstasy, but with extreme symptoms.

"People might feel euphoric; it's going to elevate their heart rate, their temperature, it can produce hyper stimulation, it can produce panic, disorientation, paranoia and aggression," he said.

People could take big risks on the drug, Mr Munro said. "It's not just a toxic overdose that can be fatal but also the behaviour that people can be led into or accompany it.

"They may behave in a very adventurous or risky way under the influence."

"A good metaphor for this would be Russian Roulette, where people are taking something that they can't be sure what it is, they don't know the dose or the potency and they can't know how their body will react to it."

He said parents should not stop their kids going to schoolies, but needed to warn them that they could die or get very sick if they take illicit substances and they should stay away from them.

"This is, unfortunately, a good example of what can go wrong."

He said most young people at schoolies won't be taking illegal substances.

"If anything illegal drug use has been declining amongst teenagers in recent years, so there are some positive signs and it may be that this sort of incident will also serve as a warning and reinforce that trend."

Paul Bentley from Ambulance Victoria said his organisation was not aware of any issues involving flakka locally.