A YOUNG man has died after being given a soft drink spiked with the
rave drug ecstasy, doctors at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow
revealed yesterday.
Details emerged as police on Merseyside announced that they had
launched an investigation into the case of Cadbury's Flake advert girl
Rachel Brown.
The 25-year-old former Vogue model remains ''poorly'' in Liverpool's
Broadgreen Hospital after apparently being given the designer drug
ecstasy at a 21st birthday party in the city more than a week ago.
Friends believe she was not aware she was taking the drug, which left
her in a confused, erratic state. They fear she may be permamently
damaged.
The Glasgow victim is the latest in a series of young people who have
arrived at the Southern General's Institute of Neurological Sciences
suffering from strokes brought on by ecstasy or amphetamines.
Like Rachel, the 20-year-old man did not know he was taking the drug.
Writing in the Scottish Medical Journal, the doctors say he was taken to
a pub one lunchtime by friends. He abstained from alcohol but his soft
drink was spiked with ecstasy.
He was carried home apparently asleep, but lapsed into a coma and was
taken to the Southern General attached to a ventilator. Brain scans
revealed a blood clot and swelling of blood vessels in the skull.
Surgeons performed an emergency operation but the young man succumbed
to a combination of severe brain swelling and torrential bleeding. He
was declared brain dead the following day.
Over the same ten-week period, two women and a 16-year-old boy were
treated at the hospital for effects of ecstasy or amphetamines. The boy
had also been drinking with friends and had his cider spiked with
ecstasy. He was treated for a blood clot in his brain and made a good
recovery.
One of the women, aged 22, developed epileptic seizures as a result of
a blood clot. An anonymous phone caller stated that she had taken
amephetamine sulphate before taking ill. The other woman, aged 30,
admitted taking a mixture of ecstasy and amphetamine at a party before
her symptoms. Doctors also found a large clot but the woman recovered.
Doctors at the Southern General say amphetamines, crack, or
adulterated forms of ecstasy can cause a rush of blood to the head,
bursting a blood vessel and bringing damaging pressure to bear on the
brain.
By February this year, five young people had suffered permanent brain
damage after taking one or other drug, and a sixth may have died in what
neuro-surgeons at the hospital described as an epidemic.
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