Pubdate: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB) Copyright: 2012 The Edmonton Journal Contact: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134 Author: Meghan Potkins, Calgary Herald; Postmedia News TAINTED DRUGS TURN ECSTASY HIGH INTO SURREAL NIGHTMARE Even after nurses told Camille Mcdonald that her friend was dead, she was still too high on drugs for the grim news to penetrate her fog. Pumped full of Valium to slow her racing heart, and still feeling the effects of the drugs she had taken hours earlier, the 21-year-old couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I was high. The whole situation was just so unreal," Mcdonald said. "I was waiting for Brandon to come in the door. I didn't think once that he was not going to make it." A month later, Mcdonald is still struggling with the death of her friend, Brandon Bodkin, who died en route to a Calgary hospital after a night of partying where they swallowed capsules of powdered ecstasy. While toxicology results are still pending, Bodkin's death is believed to be the latest in a spate of overdoses attributed to a tainted supply of the street drug. Bodkin was among three young people from Nanton rushed to hospital Jan. 22 after taking the drug. Mcdonald still doesn't understand how she survived and her friend didn't. "I kept thinking it wasn't real. I was thinking, 'Why are me and Dallan fine?' " Nearly 12 hours earlier, Brandon had been fine too. With another friend, Dallan Moser, they were partying at a Calgary bar and purchased what they thought was powdered MDMA. Mcdonald said they each took a capsule, but she believes Brandon may have taken more. Leaving the bar after last call, the group headed back to Mcdonald's Calgary apartment to unwind, listen to music and trade stories. It was nearing 3 a.m., but the drug's stimulanteffect kept them energized and laughing. They were having fun, but that suddenly ended. Brandon felt warm and took off his shirt because he'd begun sweating, said Mcdonald. "He started laying down and shaking so fast. It sounded like he was shivering, but he was sweating so much." Mcdonald watched her friend curl up in a ball, clutching his stomach. "He kept saying, 'It's OK, don't worry, I feel fine.' " Bodkin refused help, so the group returned home to Nanton together. By Sunday afternoon, they begged him to go to hospital. Dallan called for an ambulance. The next few minutes seemed to speed by for Mcdonald as EMS descended, plucking Bodkin from the house without stopping to put him on a stretcher. "They carried him, his feet hanging behind, and threw him in the ambulance," she said. Within minutes, both Mcdonald and Moser were also rushed to Rockyview Hospital. It would be another five hours until they learned their friend died even before a STARS air ambulance could take him to Calgary. For Mcdonald, who was still in a Valium-induced funk, the experience was surreal. Her IVS removed, she joined Dallan in a waiting room expecting to hear of Bodkin's recovery. Just hours earlier, Bodkin was still alive. But inside his body an excess of ecstasy's feel-good brain chemical was cooking his organs in his own skin. Emergency physician and poison expert Mark Yarema said ecstasy, including both MDMA and PMMA, is designed to stimulate the release of serotonin. "People (want) the pleasurable, euphoric effects - the feeling that everything is right in the world," Yarema said. But the Calgary doctor notes excess serotonin can also cause muscle rigidity and the body to rapidly heat to dangerous levels. "One of the real killers of these patients is their body temperature," Yarema said. "In many of the fatalities, their temperature was in the 41 to 43 C range, which we know the body cannot tolerate for long." Normal core body temperature is 37.5 C. Yarema said many more survivors of the drug could be left with lasting problems, including muscle damage and kidney dysfunction and failure. According to the latest statistics, there have been 151 ecstasy-related urgent care visits in Calgary since last April - a number Yarema suggests is up slightly from last year. More concerning, he says, is the severity of the cases coming through the doors. The number of ecstasy-related deaths in Calgary rocketed from a single death in 2010, to eight deaths in 2011. With four more confirmed in the province so far this year, including two in Calgary, 2012 is on track to be another deadly year for the street drug. Alberta's chief toxicologist said he can't remember another cluster of drug deaths quite like this one Within days of the first body coming into the morgue, Dr. Graham Jones knew that something was wrong. Despite a single, isolated death earlier in the year, PMMA found in the blood of a Calgary teen in November would be the first to alert authorities to the possibility of a dangerous variety of ecstasy being sold on the street. The lab began fast-tracking the testing of ecstasy cases. Jones made the decision to alert police that there could be a problem. At the same time, police were in touch with provincial health officials such as Yarema, who said they were seeing more extreme overdose cases in emergency rooms. "We're always on alert for clusters of deaths like this (but) this is probably one of the only situations where we've had this number of deaths due to something relatively unusual," Jones said. Even with all public health warnings from the province and police, Mcdonald and her friends somehow missed the message. "I didn't know all these people have been dying from ecstasy," she said, noting she hasn't used drugs since Bodkin's death. "It wasn't in my head. If I had known that, then I would have thought twice." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.