festival death due to " Benzo Fury" ?

[Mmmurl]

The fact it doesn't make much sense must feel like a huge disservice of fate.

That'll be why I'm here at this time in the morning then...

I guess it just goes to show you can't always predict what effect these kind of things can have on you. I hope you all stay safe.

 

[Albion]

I know...I first met one particular friend while she was still recovering from, two weeks beforehand, a planned amazing night out for her birthday with three other girls that horrifically ended a couple of hours in with her best friend collapsing and ultimately dying after taking the same acid/mdma they all shared and took with her...The post-mortem declared multiple organ failure...The rest of the girls were prefectly fine, apart from having to go through the trauma of something so shocking and upsetting and exasperated by a candyflip. I can't think of any sort of incident more tragic to have happen and any worse possible combination of drugs to be under the influence of to witness such a thing...

I don't believe candyflipping to be any more dangerous than taking acid or mdma alone. She effectively died due to the same old mdma she used on occasion, nothing excessively reckless about her actions. So yeah...We aren't invincible, the most unlikely occasion could steal our life away just like that...It's a sobering thought.

 

[parttime crackhead]

She effectively died due to the same old mdma she used on occasion...

But how?

If she'd used MD before with no problems then she surely couldn't have been allergic.

 

[Albion]

I've tried to find a logical explanation so many times. Looked through all the reports on pubmed for acid and mdma overdoses/reactions/poisoning and there's no cases on candyflipping incidents at all (there's articles on candyflipping as an increasingly popular activity among clubbers but it concluded with 'we need to do more research as we know nothing').

The most satisfying explanation I've ever had to settle for is that it can happen to the best of us if under certain conditions and nobody will see it coming...

 

[parttime crackhead]

The most satisfying explanation I've ever had to settle for is that it can happen to the best of us if under certain conditions and nobody will see it coming...

This is the thing I have a problem with though.

It's like you're saying "Although you've taken MDMA lots of times before... the next time might kill you". I don't believe this is true. Something else must have caused this. Something particular to that person. Something that was possibly going to happen anyway & not MDMA related at all???

 

[Albion]

I totally agree with you about it and its fucking frustrating and vague. It might not be down to the drug itself or own adverse reaction to it...There's so many different factors to list at play when taking any drug. Probably random shit like 'your body on this % pure mdma containing these particular impurities with the specific nutritional value of the food last eaten whilst drinking this % proof vodka with sainsbury's basics coca cola contents may result in sudden liver failure if already this stressed and being this physically active' etc.

Course in reality it results in the most contrived and negligible odds causing your untimely death. I haven't got any science to back this up with btw, it just seems likely to be the case

 

[parttime crackhead]

I don't believe in science anyway.

 

[knock]

Science is real! The following book convinced me: Popper by Bryan Magee. It's a great read about the ideas of one of the most intelligent and influential scientific thinkers.

It didn't convince me that what passes for science is real - a lot of it is bunk - but it gave me a proper understanding of the philosophy of true science. It will actually give you a healthy dose of scepticism, plus the understanding to explain why you're sceptical.

PS He(Karl Popper) is a critic of Marx, whereas I'm a fanboy. He's wrong about Marx but he's right about science.

 

[Treacle]

Albion, was she dancing excessively? Could it have been water intoxication? Crackhead; even if you've took MDMA a million times, you can still lose track of how long you've been dancing, how much water you've had, etc. I agree that an adverse reaction is almost impossible, if you're used to it (in fact, true allergic reactions appear to be almost non-existent) - it's just that you can't predict someone dancing themselves to death. That said, I don't personally know anyone who has died from MDMA, nor am I likely to.

 

[Si Dread]

These kinds of random deaths do happen on MDMA, & have often happened over the years. When I first became interested in raving & MDMA I investigated the deaths, which up to that point numbered only a few dozen at most. I came to the assumption that two processes were leading to death on MDMA.

1) A single, idiosyncratic allergic reaction, much like Toxic Shock Syndrome. Notice that the syndrome can cause dangerously elevated body temperature! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_shock

2) Heatstroke related DIC, or Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. Notice that DIC can result in Multiple Organ Failure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disseminated_intravascular_coagulation

The first cause appeared to me to be extremely rare. A death from a severe allergic reation to MDMA appeared to occur when use of the drug wasn't related to raving, or when a very small (say a half pill) dose was involved. This also tends to occur when the user is taking MDMA for the first time.

The second is obvious & has been discussed at length here & in the media.

Many years later I had cause to consider Water Intoxication as a cause of death on MDMA, for obvious reasons.

I now consider a third possibility. I believe young people who are unprepared for the effects of MDMA, those who take a larger than expected dose or who get freaked out for any reason are also likely to suffer an adverse reaction to the drug. I suspect that a serious freak out or panic attack could cause a dangerous rise in blood pressure, which of course is already raised by the drug. Sudden, heavy increases in blood pressure can have pretty dire results & this itself can lead to DIC & other heatsroke related illness.

I consider that it's possible that all MDMA-like drugs are capable of causing death through similar action, though I must stress that I am no a medical professional & am merely making assumptions where I cannot find definitive proof of something.

 

[Ismene]

It doesn't follow that because one person in a million allegedly died from MDMA, that the rest of us have to "beware". It doesn't work like that.

And the second problem is that getting reliable information from the media about a "MDMA related death" is impossible. All the information you get is totally worthless. Trying to draw any conclusions from it is a waste of time.

 

[Treacle]

These kinds of random deaths do happen on MDMA, & have often happened over the years. When I first became interested in raving & MDMA I investigated the deaths, which up to that point numbered only a few dozen at most. I came to the assumption that two processes were leading to death on MDMA.

1) A single, idiosyncratic allergic reaction, much like Toxic Shock Syndrome. Notice that the syndrome can cause dangerously elevated body temperature! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_shock

2) Heatstroke related DIC, or Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. Notice that DIC can result in Multiple Organ Failure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disseminated_intravascular_coagulation

The first cause appeared to me to be extremely rare. A death from a severe allergic reation to MDMA appeared to occur when use of the drug wasn't related to raving, or when a very small (say a half pill) dose was involved. This also tends to occur when the user is taking MDMA for the first time.

The second is obvious & has been discussed at length here & in the media.

Many years later I had cause to consider Water Intoxication as a cause of death on MDMA, for obvious reasons.

I now consider a third possibility. I believe young people who are unprepared for the effects of MDMA, those who take a larger than expected dose or who get freaked out for any reason are also likely to suffer an adverse reaction to the drug. I suspect that a serious freak out or panic attack could cause a dangerous rise in blood pressure, which of course is already raised by the drug. Sudden, heavy increases in blood pressure can have pretty dire results & this itself can lead to DIC & other heatsroke related illness.

I consider that it's possible that all MDMA-like drugs are capable of causing death through similar action, though I must stress that I am no a medical professional & am merely making assumptions where I cannot find definitive proof of something.

Well, 3 out of 4 (there are 4, you just didn't number water intoxication) of your reasons for death can be prevented, which leaves only some crazy allergic reaction. It's not even worth thinking about. You've got more chance of choking on the pill and dying, than the contents killing you (providing it's just MDMA/MDA).

 

[tragiclemming]

It doesn't follow that because one person in a million allegedly died from MDMA, that the rest of us have to "beware". It doesn't work like that.

And the second problem is that getting reliable information from the media about a "MDMA related death" is impossible. All the information you get is totally worthless. Trying to draw any conclusions from it is a waste of time.

Have to agree with this. Also agree with Si Ingwe regarding candyflipping MDMA/LSD. The potential for this to go wrong mentally can put an awful strain on your body. Combine that with dehydration, elevated body temperature and kidneys functioning at a lower capacity can put you in a lot of difficulty very quickly.

As for the 3 people @ Rockness. Very sad indeed. But 3 friends taking the same batch of pills together and all getting into serious difficulty tells me something isn't right. Did the toxicology report indicate renal failure due to 6-apb, or is it a case of telling the medics that they had taken 6-apb, therefore it must have been due to this? I would guess that millions of doses of 6-apb have been consumed since it's emergence without any reported fatalities. I'm not saying this is safe, yet statistics seem to suggest so (at least in the short term). I have no intention of adding to the suffering of friends and families of these young people, yet I feel it a matter of priority that we have the full picture of what happened.

 

[Treacle]

Have to agree with this. Also agree with Si Ingwe regarding candyflipping MDMA/LSD. The potential for this to go wrong mentally can put an awful strain on your body. Combine that with dehydration, elevated body temperature and kidneys functioning at a lower capacity can put you in a lot of difficulty very quickly

Hang on. I don't think a candyflip has as much chance of going mentally wrong than LSD alone. The MDMA clearly makes it a positive trip (usually). Why would you be dehydrated, and hot, unless you're dancing - just like you would on MDMA? Acid makes no difference in this. It killed no one.

 

[tragiclemming]

MDMA can raise body temperature without dancing. Kidneys function at a lower capacity on MDMA. Dehydration due to dancing. Adding LSD to the mix to inexperienced users 'could' lead to panic attacks and that 'could' put extra strain onto an already stressed body. I think the risk is small, yet slightly greater than MDMA on its own. Not suggesting LSD ever killed anyone.
I actually witnessed someone completely whitey on weed before, so much so that I had to call an ambulance (they thought they were having a heart attack). Although this person was fine, they did spend the night in hospital and their blood analysis did show that they had elevated levels of Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), which may indicate that the heart is under serious stress (like during a heart attack). That was from some White Widow. I'm not sure how they would have coped with a full on acid trip.

 

[Treacle]

I actually witnessed someone completely whitey on weed before, so much so that I had to call an ambulance (they thought they were having a heart attack).

The exact same thing happened to me, except I didn't go to hospital - the ambulance guys said I was fine. It did begin 12 years (and counting) of anxiety and panic attacks, however.

I actually find that MDMA makes me cold, when I'm not in a hot club. I know this is fairly common, as it messes with thermo-regulation, meaning you can get too hot or cold. I understand you mean this scenario in a 'rave-type' environment. The fact that panic attacks don't kill people would make me think there's only a very slim chance of this happening, and that the panic attack would have been mentioned by Albion. I'm not saying it definitely wasn't, but no one knows, or will....

 

[Albion]

I have to admit I've never pressed her for any more details, since it's downright inappropriate. All these suggestions are valid, although I think water intoxication would have showed up in the toxicology and would have been declared as a cause of death, which it was not.

 

[tragiclemming]

I actually find that MDMA makes me cold, when I'm not in a hot club. I know this is fairly common, as it messes with thermo-regulation, meaning you can get too hot or cold. I understand you mean this scenario in a 'rave-type' environment..

I'm the opposite. As soon as I start to come up on MDMA, the flood barriers open on my skin and I sweat bullets. My body temp also rises quite quickly. In fact, I will sweat for a good 24 hours after the last dose! It's always a good indicator of the quality of MDMA

 

[Albion]

As soon as I start to come up on MDMA, the flood barriers open on my skin and I sweat bullets.

That's not normal man.

 

[Treacle]

Haha, it's not. Especially 24 hours after! A little sweating is obviously normal, if you're coming up like a fucker.