Pubdate: Mon, 02 Apr 2001
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2001 The Calgary Sun
Contact:  http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaSun/home.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Michelle Mark

ECSTASY USER RESUSCITATED BY EMS STAFF

An all-night dance party came crashing to a halt for a young Calgary man 
after he overdosed on ecstasy early yesterday morning. A security guard at 
the Max Bell Arena found the 20-year-old man in the facility's bathroom at 
about 4 a.m.

"The young man was found to be unconscious, with decreased respirations, by 
the on-site paramedic," said Emergency Medical Services spokesman Doug Odney.

The party-goer had ingested a large amount of alcohol mixed with the drug 
GHB, a liquid form of the rave drug ecstasy.

UNRESPONSIVE

"Upon arrival, paramedics found him to be unresponsive and performed 
life-support procedures," Odney said.

Paramedics treated the man at the scene, inserting a tube into his airway 
to help him breathe.

He was then rushed to Peter Lougheed hospital in serious condition. GHB -- 
gamma-hydroxybutyrate -- is also known on the streets as Grievous Bodily 
Harm or G.

INCREASING USAGE

According to Alberta Children's Services, the drug GHB has been 
increasingly involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes and fatalities.

It is also often manufactured in home laboratories, they say. Ecstasy 
drains the brain of an important chemical called serotonin, and can cause 
users to dance to the point of exhaustion. At that point they may collapse, 
and even die.

Although ecstasy causes dehydration, drinking too much water can cause the 
brain to swell.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth