Muscle tension, nausea, and blurred vision. Forceful clenching of teeth and bulging eyes.
Welcome to the drug ecstasy.
Feelings of sadness, anxiety, depression, and memory difficulties after the high.
Doesn’t sound very euphoric, does it?
Increased heart rate and blood pressure.
Hardly fun...
Interference with the body’s ability to regulate its temperature, leading to hyperthermia.
This is getting serious.
Brain and organ damage – or death – in 75 per cent of serious overheating cases.
That’s the supposedly “safe” street drug known as ecstasy, or MDMA.
Once in the domain of raves, or large dance parties, this synthetic drug has made its way into the high school demographic.
In about the past year, it has been the cause of 18 deaths in B.C. – including two Abbotsford teens, and one in Langley.
Ecstasy doesn’t require prolonged use to be potentially fatal. Because of the wide range of toxic chemical concoctions developed in home labs, disaster can result from a single dose.
Ecstasy is cheap, it’s easy to get, and it’s increasingly popular.
Police, medical and education officials are undertaking new initiatives to get the message out: Ecstasy can be a killer.
Parents, you must become informed. You need to have conversations with the young people in your care. Don’t assume your kids simply wouldn’t touch ecstasy.
You may be tragically wrong.
And to the youth in this community: Please, listen. Think.
Say no.