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Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy use
BACKGROUND: The recreational drug ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is currently used world-wide. Severe (including fatal) health incidents related to ecstasy have been reported but a risk assessment of acute non-fatal and fatal ecstasy-related health incidents has never been performed. ME...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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SAGE Publications
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7249611/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31909673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881119897559 |
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author | van Amsterdam, Jan Pennings, Ed van den Brink, Wim |
author_facet | van Amsterdam, Jan Pennings, Ed van den Brink, Wim |
author_sort | van Amsterdam, Jan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The recreational drug ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is currently used world-wide. Severe (including fatal) health incidents related to ecstasy have been reported but a risk assessment of acute non-fatal and fatal ecstasy-related health incidents has never been performed. METHODS: In the current risk assessment review, national data of non-fatal health incidents collected in the Netherlands were combined with the nationwide exposure to ecstasy, that is, last-year prevalence of ecstasy use. In addition, the annual number of ecstasy-related deaths in Great Britain (Scotland, Wales and England) was used to assess the risk of fatal ecstasy-related cases. RESULTS: In the Netherlands, the estimated risk of a moderate to severe acute health incident following the use of ecstasy is one in 900 pills (0.11%), whereas for cocaine it is one in 1600 doses (0.06%) and for gamma-hydroxybutyrate one in 95 doses (1.05%). With respect to ecstasy-related deaths in Great Britain, the estimated risk of ecstasy alone per user is 0.01–0.06%, which is close to the range of the fatality risk in chronic alcohol users (0.01–0.02%), amphetamine users (0.005%) and cocaine users (0.05%), but much lower than that of opiate use (heroin and morphine: 0.35%). CONCLUSION: The current review shows that almost no data are available on the health risks of ecstasy use. The few data that are available show that ecstasy is not a safe substance. However, compared to opiates (heroin, morphine), the risk of acute ecstasy-related adverse health incidents per ecstasy user and per ecstasy use session is relatively low. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7249611 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72496112020-06-15 Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy use van Amsterdam, Jan Pennings, Ed van den Brink, Wim J Psychopharmacol Review BACKGROUND: The recreational drug ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is currently used world-wide. Severe (including fatal) health incidents related to ecstasy have been reported but a risk assessment of acute non-fatal and fatal ecstasy-related health incidents has never been performed. METHODS: In the current risk assessment review, national data of non-fatal health incidents collected in the Netherlands were combined with the nationwide exposure to ecstasy, that is, last-year prevalence of ecstasy use. In addition, the annual number of ecstasy-related deaths in Great Britain (Scotland, Wales and England) was used to assess the risk of fatal ecstasy-related cases. RESULTS: In the Netherlands, the estimated risk of a moderate to severe acute health incident following the use of ecstasy is one in 900 pills (0.11%), whereas for cocaine it is one in 1600 doses (0.06%) and for gamma-hydroxybutyrate one in 95 doses (1.05%). With respect to ecstasy-related deaths in Great Britain, the estimated risk of ecstasy alone per user is 0.01–0.06%, which is close to the range of the fatality risk in chronic alcohol users (0.01–0.02%), amphetamine users (0.005%) and cocaine users (0.05%), but much lower than that of opiate use (heroin and morphine: 0.35%). CONCLUSION: The current review shows that almost no data are available on the health risks of ecstasy use. The few data that are available show that ecstasy is not a safe substance. However, compared to opiates (heroin, morphine), the risk of acute ecstasy-related adverse health incidents per ecstasy user and per ecstasy use session is relatively low. SAGE Publications 2020-01-07 2020-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7249611/ /pubmed/31909673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881119897559 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | Review van Amsterdam, Jan Pennings, Ed van den Brink, Wim Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy use |
title | Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
title_full | Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
title_fullStr | Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
title_full_unstemmed | Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
title_short | Fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
title_sort | fatal and non-fatal health incidents related to recreational ecstasy
use |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7249611/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31909673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881119897559 |
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