

The man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in 9 years - henning
http://psy.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/47/1/86

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Alex3917
For what it's worth, the recommended dosage of pure MDMA is 125mg no more than
every three months. Meaning this guy actually managed to take 2,250x the RDI
for years without dying. (Not even counting all of the other drugs he was on.)

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jlcgull
... and had the longest most awesome RAVE evar!!!! </ sarcasm>

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rokhayakebe
You would think after a while he couldn't get the same feeling anymore.

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daeken
This is actually quite interesting. I'd love to see some hard data on the
actual impact this use had on the serotonergic system; for as large a part as
it plays in the brain, and all of the diseases that we believe are related to
it (everything from mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia to
migraines and cluster headaches), we really know very little about it. Our
current drugs acting on serotonin receptors are brute-force hacks -- we need
to know a whole, whole lot more.

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chopsueyar
I always likened SSRIs to a "Game Genie" for your brain. I do concur with the
brute-forced nature of it.

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subwindow
Picking a nit, but SSRIs don't actually act on serotonin receptors. Although
the action of SSRIs isn't completely understood, they generally work by
increasing the level of serotonin in the brain by reducing reuptake.

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dtf
It's worth noting that the term "ecstacy pill" encompasses a huge array of
psychoactive and non-psychoactive substances. Go and scare yourself at sites
like PillReports:

<http://www.pillreports.com/>

Unless he or one of his friends was an organic chemist, MDMA - a relatively
expensive drug to synthesize - is likely to be way down the list on the menu
of chemicals that Mr A actually consumed.

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keefe
or he just had a reputable dealer? x is on my hell-no list, but I've known
people that take it and buying from someone with connections is quite
different than the randomness you'll get if you try to buy at a rave. There is
a whole social hierarchy about manufacture and distribution of pure samples of
stuff like that.

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rjurney
I knew a guy who took to extreme ecstasy benders. He would take 2-3 or more a
day for a week, was probably under the influence half the time or more. This
went on for a year, he took hundreds of doses.

Then he had a long stint in a mental hospital.

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Tichy
But he probably was crazy before doing that, right?

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rjurney
Crazy in that he would do that, but not crazy in the sense of catatonic
depression.

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miguelpais
Really, an average of 12 pills a day?

Wouldn't that make you continuously high?

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dedward
Sounds suspicous - unless he's some kind of genetic anomaly, he'd be
completely depleted of serotonin and the drug would have nowhere near the
effect even a single pill had the first time around, at least as I understand
it - all my E-tard friends back in the day used to tell me it was kinda
pointless to do E two nights in a row, and definitely pointless ot do it every
night - severe diminishing returns (no idea if that's true or not - i like my
brain intact)

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watmough
I read the article, and it doesn't seem beyond possibility that he wasn't
exactly the smartest dude on the block, _before_ he took all that e.

That said, if street e is as impure and subject to cutting as people say it
is, then he was exposed to an enormous amount of other garbage as well.

One thing that struck me. Does e run on the same mechanisms as the SSRIs? This
got a couple of mentions in the article, so you'd think there'd be an enormous
number of people on SSRI's long-term to study.

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Daniel_Newby
> Does e run on the same mechanisms as the SSRIs?

No. MDMA causes the forcible release of neurotransmitters, especially
serotonin. SSRIs simply prolong the action of serotonin that is spontaneously
released, so they tend to be much milder.

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steveranger
Everything in moderation - if you took 40,000 aspirin's in 9 years you'd see
some strange effects.

And MDMA is absolutely incredible; I recommended everyone tries it just once.
Had some of the best nights of my life on it - completely untouchable
experiences.

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bombarolo
I guess even reading the internets for 40000 hours in 9 years will cause a
similar effect.

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cypherdog
I'm curious if elevated levels of serotonine for extremely long periods of
time would cause memory loss alone. It seems to me that memory is very much a
"wow that just stood out from the norm." sort of tracking system. Under high
levels of serotonine, maybe nothing can stand out from the norm long enough to
be remembered?

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rjurney
The thing about this story at is hard to believe is that the more you use
ecstasy, the less it makes you happy. You burn out those neurons. Takes years
before it will effect you again. Can't imagine he was getting anything but
speediness off most of at stuff, would have been pure dependence, not a high.

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barkingcat
How much money was spent on 40,000 pills? It must be at least a down payment
on a house. How did he keep a job with the residual mental effects of the
drugs? Or maybe it was family money.

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anon114
It's probably safe to assume he dealt.

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stuaxo
Saw this years ago... would be nice if they did a follow up; this must be at
least 5 years old now ?

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i386
"Guy takes cocktail of drugs every day for 10 years and winds up with mental
problems - of course! It must be the ecstasy that did it!"

I seriously question the scientific method of anyone who draws any conclusions
from this account.

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dkarl
_Mr. A reported current cannabis consumption, together with a previous history
of polydrug misuse (i.e., solvents, benzodiazepines, amphetamines, LSD,
cocaine, heroin)._

 _Decrease in level of cannabis intake led both to disappearance of his
paranoid ideas and hallucinations and reduction of his panic attacks_

I agree; they have no idea what caused what. Why didn't they at least mention
how extensively he used (for example) solvents? Plus, who knows what was
actually in the pills? Is ecstasy typically pure? A few times I thought about
taking a small dose of ecstasy before a psychotherapy appointment (its
original intended use,) but as far as I know, there's no way to reliably get a
pure, known dose illegally.

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Alex3917
"As far as I know, there's no way to reliably get a pure, known dose
illegally."

<http://www.ecstasydata.org/send_sample.php>

[http://www.dancesafe.org/shop/?page=shop/browse&category...](http://www.dancesafe.org/shop/?page=shop/browse&category_id=34855bad041ac0de73e8658e0aa8a0a5)

If you don't want to pay $120 for molly or $40 for pills to have your stuff
analyzed at the lab using mass spectrometer, then the next best option is the
complete kit from DanceSafe for $50. If I ever tried MDMA I would probably
just do both, but then again my anxiety is why I don't partake in the first
place.

~~~
dkarl
Quite informative, especially their stats page:

<http://www.ecstasydata.org/stats.php>

32% of the street ecstasy tablets they tested were pure MDMA, and 50%
contained no MDMA at all. 29% contained stimulants, so you're just as likely
to get a dose of unknown stimulants as you are to get pure MDMA. Yeah, drug
lottery? No thanks.

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dreepers10
This case report should be summarized and read to high school students as part
of their health class.

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abstractbill
Definitely not. Telling kids about the clearly very extreme cases just gives
them an easy reason to dismiss what you're telling them.

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dopamine
May I take this opportunity to remind that the _only_ drug known to be
relatively safe is caffeine.

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noonespecial
Pure caffeine powder can be almost instantly fatal if handled without gloves
and respiratory protection. There are no safe drugs, only safe quantities.

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rdl
I believe you mean nicotine...I have observed friends taking 10 kilograms of
food grade caffeine microballs and weighing and bagging in 500 mg doses to
distribute at a hacker convention, with no adverse effects.

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noonespecial
Food grade caffeine granules are both diluted and granulated to prevent
machine material handling errors from becoming deadly at food packaging
plants. The powdered stuff is quite dangerous.

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rdl
The info I have is that the granules are mainly to ease mechanical processing.
Given that ld50 of anhydrous caffeine USP is above 100mg per kilo of body
weight, I do not think a few grams, especially through skin, would be much
risk. The msds advises gloves, due to it being a skin irritant, but that is
for constant exposure.

Fine powders are a fire safety and explosion risk, of course, especially in
automated storage and processing environments....flour, non dairy creamer,
aluminum powder, etc are great fun.

If there is any info to the contrary I would be very interested.

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Daniel_Newby
"Given that ld50 of anhydrous caffeine USP is above 100mg per kilo of body
weight, I do not think a few grams, especially through skin, would be much
risk."

Fine water-soluble powders are absorbed quickly when inhaled, producing a very
high peak concentration in the blood that supplies the heart. If it is enough
to stop the heart from beating, you die, even if dose averaged over the whole
body is reasonable.

