how much is too much

i just wanted to know if there is a point that the human body starts shutting down vital organs etc when too much MDxx has been consumed.
i recently witnessed a friend take 13 high strength MDMA pills in a very short period (15hours).
it scared the shit out of me. what can i tell this idiot to stop him doing it again?

well a rule of thumb is the ld50 of mdxx is around 60 strong pills (at 100mg each) in one dose.
Im not sure about shutting down of vital organs (leading to death or at least an emergency room visit)..

It is possible for organs to begin shutting down when your core temperature rises a few degrees. It is common in regards to extream fevers etc. This could possibly occure due to overheating while on MDXX but is pure speculation as I have no medical background.

(The following refers to MDxx pills mainly) You could always try to appeal to your friends logic (if it exists) - mention that if they have a month or two break from pills, they wont need to eat 13 pills to have fun, because their tolerance will have decreased. If someone is taking the equivalent of nearly one pill per hour for twelve hours, they also leave themselves open to massive serotonin depletion causing mood swings, depression and possibly neurotoxic damage from free radical creation.
(For any kind of drug binge) At the very least, if you can't get them to reduce their pill intake, then try to recommend 5-HTP as a postload, as well as multivitamins and antioxidants. Food could also help - bananas are a good start. Hopefully if the person is determined to munch 13 pills then they could at least consider looking after their body by supplementing its nutrition.
The only sure thing is that eventually the tolerance will be such that no amount of pills will be 'enough'. Then once that happens, there's little point taking pills at all, until the tolerance has reduced. Perhaps they should reduce their pill intake before they lose ecstacy as a recreational option.
BigTrancer

In addition to the other good advice already mentioned, I just wanted to add a few things. Firstly, because you never know the mg dose in any MD** pill, you can't apply the LD5o rule - you just don't have the info needed.
The next difficulty with your question is that some people respond differently to MD** than others. For example, some have pre-existing health problems they may not be aware of (like a heart problem) so taking a large amount of MD** is more dnagerous for them than for others. Then, different people break down MD** at different rates because of different quantities of the enzymes that do this job. Again, this puts people at more risk than others.
Then there is environmental and behavioural factors that contribute to health problems like high temperatures in a venue contributing to hyperthermia. Dancing for prolonged periods can lead to muscle breakdown, etc, etc
Finally, if people take certain medications it can effect the metabolism of MD**, again leading to problems.
If my friend took 13 pills, once he had recovered I would sit him down and tell him if he ever did it again, I would never go out with him again. I would say it ruins my night stressing that my friend is gonna keel over and die. Suggest he set a limit on how many he will take in advance and that you are happy to party with him if he sticks to it. Encourage him to reflect on how the night felt, and the comedown - was it worth it (I doubt it). You can do this in a supportive way, stressing it is out of concern for him that you are doing it. Good luck with it

^^^ BT & babydoc_vic - excellent advice...
If what they've suggested fails, my advice is to try to scare him out of it. Be blunt. Tell him that if he continues dosing that highly he'll probably wind up in the emergency room.
You'll find good discouraging material at these sites...
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_health.shtml
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_effects.shtml
I think it's fair to say that the higher the dose, the more effects listed as "negative" one will encounter... And the more pronounced they'll be.

thanks for the advice guys.
the way this guy behaved that night shocked me. he went out and had nine and then went back to a chill party and ate another 4. i am not lying when i say he was lying on the floor for 8 hrs shaking and talking crap. the bizzare thing is that he can go out and feel great on 1 or 2. i think he has some issues and me and my friends are going to do a yank style "intervention".
once again, thankyou.

Mr JohhnyBopHop , ur not located in perth by anychance? i know of a friend arveraging 10+ pills a week amognst other things, this has been on for roughyl 4months :/ sad, very sad, esp when u know his whole situation

Two points I forgot to add. One, stress the fact that there comes a point (thought to be after just a few pills) where you exhaust most of your serotonin, so taking more is pointless anyhow.
Second, talk to him about how he appeared that night. Chances are, he may not recall a lot of what happened. And this

on the floor for 8 hrs shaking and talking crap doesn't sound like fun does it? If you go the intervention thing, remember the main thing is to stay really calm (no raised voices), and stress the fact that you guys are his friends and will stick by him if he just looks after himself. If you think he has "other issues" encourage him to get some professional help. Maybe get him some phone numbers for local Drug & Alcohol centres, or community health centres (who often do generic counselling). Good luck with it.

Click to expand...

i don't know of anyone doing 60 pills a night, but again i do know of friends doing 10 a night as well, after a while u see changes, obviously!
but is there a rule of how many u can take in a week?
eg:10?
if u did take 10 in a night, once...would there be any high risk factors, not that taking just 1 has none but would it be different?
or just ten times worse?
[ 29 May 2002: Message edited by: Subliminal_jac ]

The difficulty with MDMA is that beyond a certain acute dosage (be it 120-200mg or higher depending upon the person) the negative side-effects start becoming more noticeable. In fact, it's my opinion that as you take more pills throughout the night, the increase in negative effects begins to outstrip any increase in positive effects, therefore you begin to heat up, clench jaw, eyes wiggle, and feel very stressed physically, while you gain a bit more intense peak. Hardly seems worth it after awhile. Especially when you look feel like complete shite midweek and can't remember a damn thing about last weekend except that you ate 400 dollars worth of pills.
BigTrancer

that is so true!
fuck

Wow, that much MDMA for one person. Sounds like a lot.
One primary difference in the response to MDMA is the bodies response and the brains response. It would be interesting to note the relationship between "Tolerance", "Brain" and "Body" in the intake of MDMA. One hurdle here would be a quantitive identification of Tolerance. It would seem most likely that such a large intake of MDMA would probably not even get into the brain if the body has become tolerant to it. I could not find any papers that directly speak about Tolerance, however there is a large ammount of general information from
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/articles/
http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/
http://www.dancesafe.org/
A little side note/rant: It seems that no matter what bounds a culture/society sets, people attempt to move beyond those boundaries to find new boundaries for those too afraid to go beyond.
I wonder if recreational drug taking is beyond the boundaries of a rational society, or if this subculture has rational and acceptable boundaries within a rational society. Currently according to our governments it doesn't.

like anything in life you only do something up until the point where the good just outways the bad. When the negative effects of something override the positives then there is no point to doing it at all.
These people taking more than five pills in a night are just stupid. One only has a certain amount of seretonin in their brain and once it is gone it is gone. Having more and more pills is just throwing your money down the drain hoping to get high again.
Use your brain and switch to something else like alcohol or pot even if you want a successive high in the future.
Really after the third pill you have had enough and any more will just lead to negative effects.

It's always sad to see/hear/read about people who feel they need that many pills to have a good night... I went through a phase earlier this year where I was munching my way through 6-7 pills a weekend. While it's nowhere near as bad as some, it's bad enough.
It's taken 3 months' solid effort to bring it back to 3 or less in a night - and I'm still struggling a bit. Even tonight, my first Saturday night off the gear in two months, I'm sitting here thinking about the two pills in my filofax, and I know I've got a teensy little problem with taking ecstacy.
Thankfully, I am in the middle of my end of semester exams, and I know I can hold out for another couple of weeks before I dump these because so much is riding on these exams (70% weighting - ouch!)... and my body will thank me when next I indulge, for I'll be only doing two per night out from now on