Opinion: Time for warnings to help young people stay safe.
Last April, dance music magazine Mixmag published a feature on PMA, and the deaths it had caused across Britain and Ireland. Nobody intentionally sets out to buy PMA (or para-Methoxyamphetamine), but it has come to prominence recently as a drug that is being “passed off” as the active ingredient in ecstasy (MDMA).
PMA is an unpredictable amphetamine that increases body temperature and causes the release of large amounts of serotonin. Crucially, it acts slowly, which can lead some users to believe they have taken weak ecstasy, and take more.
Why is PMA being used? Most likely for cheaper production costs due to law enforcement cracking down on MDMA.
The article in Mixmag is one of the few decent, factual pieces of journalism addressing pills being purposefully contaminated by PMA and sold as “ecstasy”.
Over the past few months, reports in Ireland indicate a worrying trend. Young people are dying and being hospitalised after taking strangely named drugs. The Garda and the HSE are issuing confusing alerts about the types of pills that could be dangerous or contain PMA: green pills with Rolex or Apple logos, and others called Double Cross or Double Black.
Last summer, recreational drug users were told to be cautious about pills called Blue Ghosts. This ecstasy pill had apparently become so popular that it appeared drug manufacturers were capitalising on its brand by passing off cheaper, unknown substances in its guise. This is a public health issue, but nobody seems to know how to talk about it. We’re still stuck with the old-fashioned Just Say No mantra, when it’s really time to Just Know.
Source: Una Mullally, Irish Times, 02/06/2014
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