Award-Winning New Zealand Journalist ODs in Cambodia

He had two kids, a wife and a career to envy. This week he was found dead in a Cambodian hotel room, lying in his own vomit with visible injection marks on his body.

Christopher Adams was an award-winning journalist with the New Zealand Herald. His colleagues and the business community he reported on are shocked at the sudden death, not to mention its nature.

People in Phnom Penh aren't so much. A commenter on news discussion forum Koon Khmer says all sorts of people die from drug overdoses in the Cambodian capital. Family men, mums, young travellers—the cheap drugs don't discriminate. Dozens of travellers overdose and die in Phnom Penh every year.

Cambodia Expats Online editor Daniel Mackevili says drugs are pushed on travellers from the moment they touch down at the airport. People are dying of "heart attacks" weekly. They're in their 20s and 30s, which makes the heart attack "a tad unlikely" as cause of death, he says.

One of the problems is that people are often given heroin when they think they're getting cocaine. "It's cheaper and more available," says Mackevili.

He says guest houses often "get rid" of the evidence because they get fined when someone dies on their premises.

Adams, 34, was found on a bed in a room at the Angkor International Hotel at 4.30pm on October 24. The hotel is known to be of the seedier variety.

One Koon Khmer commenter describes the old hotel bar as a 24 hour-a-day establishment with "a plentiful selection of ladies with negotiable morals" and a signature cocktail containing "vodka, Red Bull and liquid Viagra".

Cambodian police released a statement saying Adams died from a heart attack due to the use of methamphetamine and morphine. A post-mortem urine examination found the substances in his system. Injection marks were found on his body and there was vomit by his mouth and throat, the statement said.

Adams' death is a "complete shock" to his colleagues at the New Zealand Herald, says managing editor Shayne Currie.

"Christopher was a highly regarded business journalist at the New Zealand Herald and key member of our NZME newsroom," Mr Currie said in a statement to 1 News. "We are devastated. His respect in the business community was significant and there will be many people deeply saddened by this news."

Daniel Nielsen is the digital media lecturer at the New Zealand Broadcasting School. Follow him on Twitter.