The Herald Sun is reporting that a ‘super strong’ batch of ecstasy is doing the rounds, particularly in Melbourne.
The ‘crystal cap’ is reported to be around 80% MDMA, while majority the pills we’re normally able to access here in Australia sit at around 30 – 40% MDMA.
The police are currently analysing the batch in relation to the recent events on Chapel Street in Melbourne: five people passed away due to overdose, and another 20 were hospitalised. According to the Herald Sun, it’s looking possible that these heartbreaking incidents were caused due to the stronger-than-average pill.
A pretty major part of this is the culture surrounding drugs in Australia – due to lack of regulation and therefore low and/or fluctuating dosages in the recreational drugs we take, it’s pretty damn common ifor us Aussies to take more than one pill in a night.
However, if the dosage of MDMA is drastically increased without users knowing, they’ll obviously take a potentially double or triple dose with the first pill – then take more. Literally just double dropping could easily mean overdose, and potential death.
News.com.au spoke to Hospital Emergency consultant David Caldicott about the batch of super strength ecstasy:
“The two big things we are scared about is the amazingly pure and high dose MDMA being detected in Europe.Australians tend to take two or three MDMA pills at a time, and this is made worse with drugs being a criminal rather than a health issue.Generally an ecstasy pill will be between 75mg and 100mg, but in Europe we are detecting MDMA of between 200mg and 300mg.That is going to cause big problems. When you start dealing with 200mg doses, you can die.”
But hey, we’ll say it again, for all the politicians with their heads planted firmly in the sand – harm minimisation works, and so does pill testing.
Remember, fam: you can buy pill testing kits at chemists, and they’re super cheap, easy to use and don’t take long at all. Look after yourselves, and each other. <3
Source: News Corp / Herald Sun.
Photo: Randy Quan / Getty.
