Deaths in England related to "bad batch" MDMA are actually related to PMA.
This substance have responsible for more than 100 deaths in
the UK, and now the majority of deaths that the media report as being
due to “ecstasy” are, in fact, caused by PMA and PMMA.
Their re-emergence is directly due to the international community’s
attempts, via UN conventions, to stop the use of MDMA by prohibiting its
production and sale. As the earlier UN drug control conventions were
clearly not working, in 1988 a further attempt to limit drug use by
impairing production was made by banning a number of precursor
chemicals. One of these is safrole, the precursor of MDMA. In 2010 there
was a massive seizure of 50 tonnes of safrole in Thailand.
This did significantly dent availability for MDMA production, so
chemists looked for an alternative source of a suitable precursor.
Aniseed oil seemed the ideal alternative, as it is chemically very
similar to safrole, so this was used. Unfortunately the product that
results from using the MDMA production process with aniseed oil is PMA
or PMMA. Hence these substances only exist because of the blockade of
MDMA production. That in itself wouldn’t particularly matter if they
were not more toxic than MDMA.
Read the full article in The Guardian:
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