With lineups steadily being released and festival season around the corner, people have been planning their future trips. But you may want take extra care while planning for festivals this spring. Released from the harm reduction service, KnowYourStuffNZ, based in New Zealand, a report shows that a collection of dangerously potent ecstasy is being sold.
The biggest change to take note is the increase in the amount of pills that actually contain ecstasy. Previously only 20 percent of ecstasy pills contained MDMA, but now 75 percent of ecstasy pills are showing to contain actually MDMA. Additionally, there can be multiple doses in one pill.
Low doses of MDMA have a low risk, but when one takes a higher dose of MDMA the risk rises. Higher doses of MDMA can lead to serotonin syndrome which in turn can lead to a high rise in body temperature or worse, death.
What is most worrying is the discovery of cathinones being used a substitute for MDMA. Cathinones are commonly known as bath salts and are toxic to the body. They do a terrible job at mimicking the effects of MDMA, making users take more because they are not feeling the desired effects and putting themselves in a dangerous state.
According to KnowYourStuffNZ, their testing cannot determine the dosage. If a heavy pill shows a high percentage of MDMA then one can assume the dose may be higher than normal.
KnowYourStuffNZ has warned us of a few pills to stay away from. In their report “green guccis”, “yellow rolexes” and “pink porsches” are to be steered away from. The most harmful is the pink porsche which has reportedly caused its users to have terrible symptoms. Through testing, the pink porsche was shown to contain a high percentage of MDMA AND “dangerous pharmaceutical agents”.
