Britons warned of ecstasy with lethal doses in UK market

Britons have been warned of ecstasy pills in the UK market with double or triple doses of the active ingredient, which could lead to death of some users.

British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), along with a charity organization, gained access to the pills in a festival in Manchester, the Guardian reported Wednesday.

According to Fiona Measham, an ACMD member and the founder of The Loop charity, the pills obtained at the Parklife festival contained as much as 250 milligrams of MDMA more than twice the 100 milligrams they used to have in the 90s.

Some 75,000 people took part in the two-day festival, during which Measham’s team tested around 300 samples of pills and powders either handed in or seized by paramedics, police and security.

“It’s not as accurate as if you were going to take it to a lab, but what we can do is give rough estimates on site of what are low, medium and high strength pills,” Measham said.

She warned the British to particularly avoid red Mastercard and yellow Mickey Mouse pills due to their harmful doses.

Her team will take part in other music events in the summer to test more of the pills available there.

“The reason we test on site is so we can say with some certainty what is circulating on site at Parklife. It could be totally different contents of pills next week or the week after using the same press. That’s why you need to have testing at every event,” she said.

Ecstasy consumption has recently been on the rise in the UK and Europe with clandestine chemists vying for the strongest of pills.

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