Deaths from PMA, a more toxic form of ecstasy, are rising in the UK, but are almost unknown in countries that take a more pragmatic approach.
The story of paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA, is a neat parable of the war on drugs: a story of unintended consequences, a problem with viable solutions that are being ignored. Fixing this problem will not fix everything else. It is a relatively small part of the picture. But the logic that drives our response to it stands as a bottomlessly depressing symbol of the whole.
PMA has been around since the 1970s. It has some similar effects to MDMA (ecstasy), and it really came to prominence when efforts to crack down on that drug began to succeed in the mid-1990s. “It is a classic example,” says David Nutt, the former government adviser who now chairs the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. “Prohibition has led to the attempt to avoid prohibition, and therefore the production of more toxic substances.”
