News and other Busyness

Drugs Death Not Ecstasy

Squall 13, Summer 1996, pg. 6.

The death of 20 year old Claire Pierce in May was another example of the manufactured campaign against Ecstasy.

According to coroner, Dr Nigel Chapman, Claire died of poisoning directly attributable to drinking large quantities of Hooch Alcoholic Lemonade and consuming 10 dystalgesic painkillers. He did not say that the Ecstasy tablet she had also consumed was responsible for poisoning her.

Nevertheless much media coverage, from tabloid to broadsheet, was given over to the farcical suggestion that she had consumed alcohol and painkillers in order to heighten her Ecstasy trip and therefore that the E was to blame. Alcohol is well known to lessen the effects of Ecstasy and is therefore generally consumed less by people who take E.

This fact has provided the primary motivation behind the alcohol industry’s support of anti-Ecstasy news manufacture (see Recreational Drug Wars in SQUALL 12). There is also no connection between taking pain killers and heightening the effects of Ecstasy. Dystalgesics are powerful painkillers with a maximum of eight tablets recommended over the course of one day for a patient in severe pain. They are strictly not to be taken with alcohol.

The media aspersions made about the role of Ecstasy in Claire’s death represented yet more recklessly inaccurate information. Anyone who read the article, and is thinking of dropping some dystalgesics to heighten their Ecstasy trip, should take heed.