Earlier this week, 10 students at Wesleyan University and two guests were hospitalized in suspected drug overdoses. According to the New York Times it began with three students were taken to hospital, leading to a general warning from the University. As students woke up, read the email, more came asking for them to check on their fellow students to make sure they were ok. By the end, ambulances had taken a dozen people to hospital.
So, what can we learn from this?
Learn About Molly?
All the students are said to have overdosed on the same drug during a rave party on campus. This is said to be Molly, another name for ecstasy or MDMA and X. Chief William McKenna of Middletown, Connecticut where the university is based, is reported in the Chicago Tribune to have said that“this particular batch may have had a mixture of several kinds of design drug chemicals, making the health risks unpredictable.”
Ecstasy is an empathogenic substance and is usually distributed as a capsule or pill to be orally ingested. It’s synonymous with the rave and dance party scene across the world. It is not commonly associated with addiction by the general public who think of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and crystal meth first, but ecstasy is highly addictive too.
Check On Your Friends
If you believe your friends have taken ecstasy/Molly recently, such as earlier that evening or the night before it is worth keeping an eye on them. As the students of Wesleyan University found out, the effects can be delayed and they can be bad.
As Chief McKenna pointed out, the batches are mixed and unpredictable. Therefore anyone taking the drug does not know exactly what is in it and how their body will react to it. Common side effects include:
- Nausea
- Sweating/chills
- Blurred vision
- High heart rate
- Depression
- Sleep problems
- Severe anxiety
Taking Molly or Ecstasy can kill.
It’s Ok To Say No and to Seek Help
Often there can be a social pressure to conform and take an illegal drug such as Molly while at a party or with friends/fellow students who are also taking it. The small clusters of overdoses at the university and the fact four separate people were arrested for distributing it, suggests that many more took the drug that evening. The taking also took place at one location – a rave party. It is ok to say no because in the end, your health is more important than a quick social fix.
Furthermore, if you fear you may be becoming addicted to Molly or fear a friend is, you can get help. There are clear warning signs of an addiction to, which includes increased usage of the drug, thinking about it to an obsessive degree, impaired memory and cognitive function, finding socialization difficult without the pill, and the health problems mentioned above.
Image Credits:
1. “Wesleyan University – Butterfield Colleges pano 01” by Joe Mabel. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecstasy_monogram.jpg
