Hi Donncha, That was the description and terminology given to me by the HSE. Will check with them.
Thanks
Sinead

You’re spot on Donnacha.

People should really look at this from a harm reduction point of view. Regardless of whether you think of all recreational drug users are “junkies” (their not) or that MDMA is completely harmless (it isn’t), peoples lives are on the line here.

This PMMA adulterated batch of MDMA doing the rounds is potentially fatal and if one person’s life can be saved be getting some factual harm reduction advice then that is a good thing. These tragic deaths are a product of drug prohibition, where drugs can be sold by criminal without any standards or guarantees of purity. Two otherwise law abiding and productive citizen are now dead for consuming a substance (MDMA) which would almost certainly have been safe if it had been produced and sold in a legal, but regulated manner.

I am really curious who down voted my comment? Not a fan of facts? By all means comment and promote a sensible and informative discussion.

Donncha, don’t worry about a couple of red thumbs. For a 20:1 ratio I’d expect it’s people hitting the wrong one on their phone. It happens with my clumsy thumbs sometimes. The Journal should really allow you to change your vote once it’s hit…

Worrying lack of understanding of the drug by the HSE. I wonder where they thought the ‘D’ in MDMA came from if it stood for methylamphetamine. Different substance altogether.

see drugs.ie:

Methylenedioxy-N-Methylamphetamine (MDMA),also know as ‘Ecstasy’, and Para-Methoxy-N-methylamphetamine (PMMA).

I’ll agree with you about the drink. I have been drinking like a luny on the weekends for 16 years and now I have stomach ulcers for my troubles. I’ve finally seen that I was addicted to it and have put an end to it. I don’t think most of the country realise how much of a grip it has on them because they only drink on the weekends!

I think what people get annoyed about is attitudes such as Diarmuids (above there) that always seems to take away any personal responsibility for people putting that filth into their bodies

I think what people get annoyed about is attitudes such as Diarmuids (above there) that always seems to take away any personal responsibility for people putting that filth into their bodies

What’s wrong about my attitude? Ppl take drugs for a variety of different reasons, to escape their everyday life, because they’re curious, because they hang around the wrong ppl etc etc. just cause I think the “era stuff them” attitude is inhumane and stupid doesn’t mean I have “an attitude”, it means I care about other ppl regardless of their good or bad choices or good or bad backgrounds, learn a bit of humanity. Two young men have died!

Sorry I wasn’t attacking you personally but people have to take responsibility for their actions. When junkies get caught for robbing someone they always get lighter sentences because of the attitude of the poor little junkie. Where was the humanity when junkies mugged me when I was in my teens?

I understand that and I am sorry to hear you got mugged in your teens, must have been terrifying. What I can’t understand is ppls blase attitude to life. Some above posters are pretty much saying f anyone who takes drugs, they know the consequences, forgetting the fact that some ppl have had awful lives, some ppl are living in awful poverty, some ppl hang around with the wrong crowd, some mad a bad decision and are now hooked and some are just basically curious. Saying stuff them cause they took drugs is a more disrespectful attitude to life to have than the “junkies” they claim to despise! Ppl take drugs, it’s about time we all accepted that and tried to help those who do get into difficulty, not spit on their graves!

Fair enough but from living in the inner city I honestly believe the half of them are probably beyond help or probably don’t want it. You ever try to give a coffee/tea and a sandwich to junkie? We’ll leave it at they weren’t to happy that it wasn’t money.

But sher of course they didn’t want it, you ever offer a Mars bar to a smoker instead of a fag after they jump off a long haul flight?

Smokers can usually hold down a job and buy their own. Most people bumming smokes in town are our friends again the brass monkey.

Felix do you honestly think that the only group suffering from drug addiction are the junkies you see in Dublin city centre. There are doctors, solicitors, teachers, guards that take drugs at the weekend, some of them are addicts, some of them overdose too! Don’t cod yourself into thinking that the only drug addicts you encounter on a daily basis are the ones on the city centre boardwalks!

They’re protected under Croke Park Beagaí

in Holland and in France you can walk into a clinic get your drugs tested for purity and safety, all confidential and if they don’t pass their scrutiny test they destroy them, but if their deemed safe you can have them back,

Like it works for Tobacco & Alcohol ??

Sadly there are more people addicted to prescription medication and legal medication than the big bad illicit ones! I have heard of numerous ppl being addicted and overdosing on solpadeine for example, one girl in even died from that accidental overdose!

That doesn’t necessarily mean anything – there are drug recalls on a semi regular basis, between being found to be harmful or the wrong drugs being put in the wrong packaging.. You can’t assume to be safe and sure just because it comes in a fancy packet :(

What don’t understand is this. If a recreational drug sold last weekend was cut with a highly dangerous substance why are we not looking at more deaths? Surely more than two people purchased from this batch. And before people call me stupid I know very little about the recreational drug scene, thankfully.

I’ve been prescribed Xanax (among others) for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I try to avoid taking them unless absolutely necessary once I realised I had begun taking them ‘just in case’ a panic attack might come on. I’ve taken quite a few illegal substances in my youth but the most addictive of any substance was Xanax.

@ Anthony

That’s a good point. My theory is that there was not a ‘bad batch’ of MDMA going around but that the individual that sold the substance to the young men actually ground up dodgy ecstasy pills that contained PMMA. People can identify the amount of MDMA in an ecstasy pill by the imprint on the pill so that if low-purity pills are in circulation they are easily identifiable. Consequently, the dealer may find it difficult to sell those particular pills which contain PMMA. I reckon the dealer had some pills left over and ground them up to make this substance. MDMA usually takes the form of off-white crystals as opposed to the brown powder we see here.

Reckon that could have been the Guinness you washed them down with, Tones ;-)

Now where, tell me, is the fun in that?

The fact really is people are taking chemicals that they have no idea what is in them.

Its clear people will take the drugs either way. I for one think that regulation is the only way to avoid fatalities.

If these people could by regulated doses produced in a proper lab with known potency and chemical contents they’d still be alive. Whether your pro or anti drug i dont think you can argue with that.

The fact really is people are taking chemicals that they have no idea what is in them.

Its clear people will take the drugs either way. I for one think that regulation is the only way to avoid fatalities.

If these people could buy regulated doses produced in a proper lab with known potency and chemical contents they’d still be alive. Whether you’re pro or anti drug i dont think you can argue with that.

Ok that’s going to fix the amount of people who suffer with addiction in this country.

It could be a bag of speed or Mephedrone. Meow meow :)

Just to say I had more wrote on the above paragraph offering my condolences too , why it’s not there now I don’t know, that’s the second time the journal has screwed me over thanks :)

your supposed to hit reply up the top where your comment is. now adam will never know he has a foul mouth

Neither can I. Don’t know how people would think heroin addicts would suddenly start going to work either to pay for it?

It’s highly unlikely that recreational drugs will be legalized. Let’s face facts here, if some “authorities????” had their way alcohol and tobacco would be criminalized tomorrow.

Id imagine if most Authorities knew then what they know now, Tobacco/Alcohol may never have been legalised in the first place :)

Great attitude there Barry. Drugs are a common symptom of life now. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth or no disposition for curiosity! Why cross the road when you can get a belt of a car?

Yes, Nana

Oh relax. “Oh I’m Barry, I’m in the eighties, I’m dying of heroin in a puddle in the corner in an advert.” Drugs are fine, Barry, everyone agrees now. Drugs are what happen to people and that’s fine, so shut up.

barry your using drugs, you just haven’t realised it yet

Diarmaid, I think that you’ll find that people silver spoons in their mouth love to try drugs as well.

Who doesn’t like a white xmas

Is this the first time I gave Declan a thumbs up :o

With regards to the drugs, thousands upon thousands, if not millions upon millions, of MDMA pills are taken weekly across the world yet the human race isn’t going into extinction. MDMA is a fairly tame drug compared to the likes of heroin and crack. Whatever the PMMA stuff is, I don’t know, but if I was a gambling man I’d put money on that being the cause of death.

PMMA a stimulant drug a bit like speed, mixed with MDMA or alcohol is dangerous.

They do lads which is why I said about curiosity…

Yeah, reading the wikipedia article about it now. It states that many deaths that were originally attributed to MDMA/ecstasy were in fact from tablets contaminated with PMMA. Upon reading now, I remember having read about PMA many years ago in my wild years when I was doing some ‘research’. This seems to be a more lethal version of PMA.

If anything, this is a case that furthers the cause of legalisation and regulation. If the MDMA tablets were taken off the black market and sold as regulated commodities those two lads and quite a few others would still be alive.

Adam not enough Peep Show fans for that one

Actually think you use spoons to use drugs in the first place.

that comment is highly disrespectful to the family and friends of those two young lads that sadly passed away.

So your handing them a death sentence?

Alcohol is a drug why warn people around the use of that? Plus it is actually the one drug causing the most problems in this country. You’ve lost human qualities of empathy and understanding along the way!

MDMA has been around a lot longer than 7 years, and it’s not a ‘pure’ form of ecstasy, it IS ecstasy. If you can provide some proof of so many deaths from it I wouldn’t mind having a look.

It was invented 100 years ago last month, happy birthday MDMA

MDMA is big on the London scene the last 7 years. MDMA is a stronger form of the ecstasy pill. More pure.

No Mark, you are misinformed. Ecstasy is MDMA in tablet form. It can also come in powder form. Yes, the powder form is usually more potent than the tablet form, because the tablet form is usually contaminated with other crap as filler, but as we can see from this case, the powder can also be contaminated with other chemicals.

In your original post you said “on the streets” now you’ve changed it to “big on the scene”. I can assure you that either way MDMA has been big in the UK, Ireland, and some other European countries from at least the early 90′s (if not earlier). It’s only recently that it’s began to take off in the USA though.

@ Barry

http://thedea.org/statistics.html

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/MediaNews_FactResearchGuide_DrugRelatedDeaths.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15923484

Thats what i meant Barry

When i say it is big on the scene in London im talking about the brown powder form, the stonger version to the pill. The pill it around since the 90s.

I don’t normally type OMG but OMG did you even read the articles you replied with? They confirmed what I was saying! Many people haven’t died from MDMA as you said in your original post. If there was even a one in a thousand chance of dying from an MDMA tablet then people would be dropping like flies all over Ireland every weekend because there’s a helluva lot more than a thousand taken.

How many times are you going to change ‘what you meant to say’? You clearly said that MDMA was responsible for many deaths. It isn’t. The proof you provided actually proved you wrong. Regardless of what you are now going to say what you mean, MDMA is a specific chemical that is NOT THE SAME as PMA/PMMA/etc.

The one were it states 48 MDMA related deaths in 2006

Read the WHOLE article. Not just the numbers. The key word is ‘related’. It counts mixing with other drugs (such as PMMA) related. It counts driving under the influence and crashing as related. It does not say that they died from MDMA toxicity. Sheesh.

Right, that’s it, Larson, O’Brien, prinicpals office NOW

I know, jeez, i wasn’t looking for a cat fight.

That’s uninformed rubbish, and to be frank, distracts from the real dangers of drugs, which if it needs to be spelt out, is your fragile mental health.

I blame Walter White!

he’s probably cooking a batch of the blue stuff as we speak… :-O