Canada health official: Taking pure ecstasy safe

[girl]

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — British Columbia's top health official says taking pure ecstasy can be safe when consumed responsibly by adults, despite warnings by police about the dangers of the street drug after a rash of deaths.

Dr. Perry Kendall said Thursday that the risks of MDMA – the pure substance synonymous with ecstasy – are overblown, and that its lethal dangers arise when gangs mix the manmade chemical with other toxic substances.

Sixteen people from western Canada died last July from a tainted batch of ecstasy they obtained from dealers, the only way an average person can acquire the drug in Canada. It was cut with a toxin called PMMA.

Kendall is advocating that MDMA be legalized and sold through licensed, government-run stores where the product is strictly regulated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...-legalization/

[Seth]

It's about fucking time they get it right for once.

[Aberzhulan]

Finally. Somethin cool happens in another country.

Can't say that it's a great thing, but I'm jus happy they want to try to legalize and control it instead of condemning it forever. Now if only the U.S. could be like this...

[bballerinri2]

I really hope it happens, finally health officials somewhere are realizing it's a miracle drug and generally safe if it actually happens I'll be making many trips to Canada

I actually have hope for this happening since Canada has socialized medicine which means the doctors and health officials control the field not gay ass bureaucrats lmao


EDIT: doctors and health officials mostly control the field, the government still has a say but i doubt the government would because they don't know as much as the health officials.

[Aberzhulan]

which means the doctors and health officials control the field not gay ass bureaucrats lmao

That is awesome! If the current political state of the U.S. continues declining, I think I'll move to Canada. I used to know an exotic dancer that lived in Quebec. Nice girl.

[Quoth the Raven]

the doctors and health officials control the field not gay ass bureaucrats lmao

Hmm, not necessarily the case.. social healthcare is administered by the government. What do governments spawn? Bureaucrats.
Here in the UK health policy (and drugs policy more specifically) is set by the government - sure, there's an advisory panel of doctors and health workers, but the government is under no obligation to TAKE that advice.

[raffytaffylol]

A lot of officials here in Europe are also starting to sing this tune. Is there much to it? I don't know....I do notice one thing in common. It's usually people who are out of politics and aren't running for a public position....THEN they start saying...well yeah...*it should be controlled...legal...blah blah blah* It's hard to believe them...why didn't they make such claims while in office? HMMM? I agree that it should be controlled and sold to responsible adults who chose to use it...it would cut down, it not eliminate a lot of negative factors. Overdoses, toxic cuts, side effects would pretty much be eliminated if a person purchased such a substance from an official source. Not to mention the profits would not be supporting cartels..instead it could be used to further the human agenda...you know...positive things.

[bballerinri2]

Hmm, not necessarily the case.. social healthcare is administered by the government. What do governments spawn? Bureaucrats.
Here in the UK health policy (and drugs policy more specifically) is set by the government - sure, there's an advisory panel of doctors and health workers, but the government is under no obligation to TAKE that advice.

I meant to say, it has a chance because the governments that have socialized medicine often takes the doctors and health officials opinions very seriously, but your right them government can shoot it down if it wants but I highly doubt it would because the health officials know way more about health than damn bureaucrats lmao

[Introspective]

Eh. I've seen enough people who have fried their brains on molly...while I agree with the article, you shouldn't think its safe to go out and do it like every few days back to back to back. Gotta use discretion.

[Quoth the Raven]

Eh. I've seen enough people who have fried their brains on molly...while I agree with the article, you shouldn't think its safe to go out and do it like every few days back to back to back. Gotta use discretion.

True. However, with legalisation, the government has the opportunity to disseminate useful, factual information regarding dosage - in fact, ideally it'd be included as a leaflet with the drug, like safety information is for pharmaceuticals. No more snort-and-guess like you have with black-market product.

[girl]

Yes that is true. Here is another article

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012...fe?sc=fb&cc=fp

Pure Ecstasy Is Safe, Canadian Doctor Says, But Don't Buy 'E' On The Street

by Eliza Barclay

As far as recreational drugs that could have health benefits go, ecstasy doesn't exactly have a lot of champions. Instead, the drug, so often associated with raves, has been fingered as responsible for fatal overdoses, depression and problems in fetal development.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that the chief health officer of British Columbia said today that ecstasy, or MDMA, is safe for consumption and may not have negative long-term health effects. But the official, Dr. Perry Kendall, who gave interviews to several Canadian media outlets, wants to be clear about one thing: There is a big difference between pure ecstasy and the stuff that gets cut with other chemicals and makes up the vast majority of what's sold on the street.

In other words, don't go running out onto the street in search of "E."


"Unless you are getting it from a psychiatrist in a legitimate clinical trial, at the present time, you can't guarantee what's in it, how much there is, or its safety, so I would say, as we have said in the past: Don't take it," Kendall told CBC News.

As you might have inferred, ecstasy is indeed being given to volunteers in clinical settings. For that matter, so is ketamine, a club drug also known as "Special K" that's shown promise in treating severe depression, as NPR's Jon Hamilton has reported.

Still, it's hard to imagine an American health official making such a pronouncement. But Canada has long had a more lenient attitude toward drugs. Vancouver's city council is currently debating marijuana decriminalization; advocates for decriminalization say the illegal drug trade fuels violence in the city.

Kendall told media outlets that if ecstasy were legalized, it would also take control out of the hands of criminals and give the government the chance to regulate the trade.

"[If] you knew what a safe dosage was, you might be able to buy ecstasy like you could buy alcohol from a government-regulated store," Kendall told Canada's National Post in an interview.

Kendall isn't the first health expert to defend the safety of pure MDMA.

Michael Mithoefer, an associate clinical professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, uses MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. "There's quite a bit of phase one safety data from studies in the United States and Europe, using doses [of pure MDMA] similar to the ones we're using under medical supervision ... that have shown that [the drug] can be safely administered in that kind of situation," Mithoefer told Tell Me More's Michel Martin in 2007.

And as we've reported, David Nichols, a Purdue University pharmacologist, has also looked at various pharmacological uses for ecstasy. He began his research in the 1980s, before anyone had even heard of it.

[Aberzhulan]

True. However, with legalisation, the government has the opportunity to disseminate useful, factual information regarding dosage - in fact, ideally it'd be included as a leaflet with the drug, like safety information is for pharmaceuticals. No more snort-and-guess like you have with black-market product.

This is what I was tryin to say, but wasn't able to say it so well.

[Quoth the Raven]

This is what I was tryin to say, but wasn't able to say it so well.

Why thanks

I'm particularly proud of "snort-and-guess", that's my new catchphrase when I come across someone doing drugs they've no clue about.