Star Article

I don't want to seem like I don't feel for the girl's family but I have 2 questions regarding this article.

1. Who takes E to go shopping?
2. At the end of the article it says most people die by dehydration or over-hydration. How do you over-hydrate? Isn't that called drowning?

Never taken E myself. I wasn't in the rave scene when it was first popular and now I'm too old. "I'd look pretty silly dead in a ditch somewhere with a mind full of chemicals". Well, some chemicals I'd look silly with. Others, people would just go, "well duh".

1. E has very addictive side effects, and it can make a depressed person very happy, so they tend to take it any time during the day so they can stay elivated. Usually this results in de-hydration, sleep deprivation and seizures, because they lose the ability to tell when their body is exhausted.

2. If you drink too much water, you can actually drown your body. This type of death has actually happened a lot with long distance marathon runners, over-hyrating and causing thier body to drown. It sounds crazy but it happens.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_health_water.shtml
http://www.jnj.com/news/jnj_news/20031030_105713.htm;jsessionid=AVNK51NQEEY0CCQPCB3WU3QKB2IIWTT1

I've never been into the "E" scene. But I have a 2 hour long speech that I give to any of my friends who consider taking it, about it's harsh side effects and the terrible things it does to your body.

When someone "over hydrates" themselves on E, basically they consume too much water and it can have 2 effects. It can dilute minerals in your blood to unsafe levels and it can also actually cause an increase in water content in the brain.
Everyone, who has ever done this, has always been instructed to drink lots of water because when you are in a hot club, dancing for hours you lose LOTS of water and that alone is a dangerous situation, and definitely more common of a problem than over hydration.

The problem with "reported" E deaths is that 99% of the time it is the contributing factors to the death being the cause rather than the actual E.
The problem is that 99% of "street" level E has such a low E content and is mostly composed of "other" intoxicants which are cheaper and easier to produce.
Also, the fact that many will enhance their experience with other drugs, which can unwittingly result in an "overdose" on a unknown substance, EG: Candy flipping, I think, is the combo of E and coke, so the user consumes "X" amount of coke, then consumes "X" amount of what they believed to be E, which turned out to be more coke in a pill form.

Of course, another factor affecting reported E deaths are simply other causes of death...
Car accidents, falling down stairs, actual drowning, etc...
Whatever the core "cause of death" is, it will always be reports as "caused by exstacy use" if the drug is present either in the system or at the scene, as it is a good story for the media.
I have never heard of a single death directly caused by the consumption of clean E (MDMA) without one of the above listed "contributing' factors as being the actual cause of death.

Sarah, I would love to hear some of you "key" points and facts regarding the dangerous "effects" of E.
Hope they aren't similar to the 1950's, smoking weed makes you the devil...

Hmm, I've never been a person to get real depressed. Everybody does get a bit now and then. Me, it's usually during playoffs season and the Leafs are out again. But I can see how someone who is chronically depressed would get hooked on that stuff.

I guess one way to avoid hynonatremia (yes, I RTFAs) would be to stay with Gatorade instead of water. Or perhaps just keep licking the salt off you arms that you're sweating out...

Either way, I think I'll stick to what I know.

2 hour speech huh? Well, I can think of worse things than a pretty girl talking to me for a couple of hours!

A major factor in many ecstasy-related deaths is the dehydration and overheating that can result when ecstasy is taken in conjunction with all-night dancing. Ecstasy increases body temperature, blood pressure and heart rate, which can lead to kidney or heart failure, strokes and seizures. Ecstasy may cause jaundice and liver damage.

People with high blood pressure, heart or liver problems, diabetes, epilepsy and any mental disorder are the most vulnerable to the potential dangers of ecstasy. Part of the danger is that people may not be aware that they have these conditions, and the effects of ecstasy can trigger symptoms.

As with all illegal street drugs, the purity and strength of ecstasy can never be accurately gauged. When you take ecstasy, you don't know what you're taking, or how it will affect you.

Combining ecstasy with other drugs, illicit or prescription, may cause a toxic interaction. There are several prescription medications know to interact with ecstasy. There include a certain kind of antidepressant called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), and ritonavir, a protease inhibitor used to treat HIV.

Driving or operating machinery while under the influence of ecstasy, or any drug, increases the risk of physical injury to the user, and increases the risk of injury to others.

Tolerance to ecstasy builds up very quickly. this means the more often you take ecstasy, the less effect the drug has. Taking more of the drug may not achieve the desired results, as frequent ecstasy use depletes serotonin and other brain chemicals that give the ecstasy "high."

While there is little evidence to indicate that MDMA can produce physical dependence or withdrawal symptoms, it's not uncommon for the drug to take on an exaggerated importance in people's lives.

I'm impressed that you have all that memorized! But you must speak....very....slowly....for....it....to....take....2....hours

The real speech involves some interactive role-play, some knock out gas and some rope to tie people up to prevent them from going out and buying the stuff, in case the speech doesnt work.

hog-tying humans can take a while.......

Sounds like a fun Friday night!