Comment · Sat, November 3, 2012
do you think ecstasy users underestimate the dangers of the drug (particularly hyperthermia-related issues)?
Original post in this thread
pylori · 14 points
if you're aware of the issues it's not too hard to remain safe whilst using it, but the fact that so many people are uninformed about the dangers/risks makes things worse (death from ecstasy is reported to be in the 1 in 2000 range). also the fact that the quality/purity of the drug is so varied probably doesn't help things either (as well as being cut with other substances.
i read one case report of a police confiscated pill containing 270mg! jeez imagine taking that amount for the first time, and one patient presented with a temperature of 43C!
i think there's more rave organisers could do to ensure people remain hydrated, and, more importantly, better drug education in schools worldwide to make people aware of the effects and keep them safe. i've always struggled to understand how we have understood and adopted a safe-sex attitude to sex education instead of abstinence only (well at least in most of europe) but we can't do this with drugs. my school drug education consisted of "don't do it, drugs are bad, mmkay" and the horrible talk to frank scheme. i was left with the impression that all drugs cause krokodil-style effects, luckily i wised up on my own.
What they were answering
pylori · 1 points
It was also not MDMA neurotoxicity that caused the deaths, but rather renal failure and hyperthermia that caused a hypertensive crisis, seizures, and muti-organ failure.
It doesn't need to be neurotoxicity that causes the death for MDMA to be dangerous, and that's what i was trying to drive at. I wasn't even concerned with neurotoxicity I think that's far from a big issue when it comes to deaths from MDMA. Clearly the compounding issue of hyperthermia and the environment (such as dancing and elevated ambient air temperature) all contributed to the problem. I don't mean to imply that MDMA is some lethal drug, just that it can have some potentially serious consequences. While these can be relatively easily avoided (such as staying hydrated) that doesn't change the fact that this is not something that seems to be widely known by a lot of people who take MDMA. Therefore the dangerous consequences are more likely to occur than they should be if everyone was well informed.
Out of the 12 that were assessed, while only 2 died it should also not be ignored that 4 were affected by likely chronic disease in some way due to the extent of damage. I'm not saying MDMA was the sole cause, which is why I have mentioned the hyperthermia and avoiding that in numerous posts, just that the uneducated use of MDMA exacerbates those side effects and makes it more dangerous.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Then you and I are pretty much in agreement. I just don't think those 2 deaths should be contributed solely to MDMA . That was my argument, that 1 in 2000 number is flawed, given the evidence. Perhaps it should be a mitigating factor, but not the sole cause.
EDIT: We should say ecstasy related deaths, like we do with alcohol. A drunk driver running into a wall on the freeway and dying does not mean he was killed by alcohol. He was killed by his stupidity. The alcohol was a mitigating factor in the death, but not the direct cause. It was an alcohol related death. Then, if a person dies from alcohol poisoning, we can say he was killed by alcohol. See my perspective?