Missing Neuron or neurotransmitter...

[Chaote]

Can anyone tell me what missing neurotransmitter or neuron or possible enzyme i forget now, but if you are misiing it ( which 1 in 12 ppl are) upon taking E you die or at least come close to it.

[xpr´k]

Sounds like your typical anti drugs lobby myth.
If 1/12 ended up a (near) fatality this drug would never have been popular, i'm pretty sure that your source is faulty

[Gareth]

1 in 10 people have an inability to metabolise MDMA in the same way that the rest of the population does. For these people, MDMA and, hence the effects, last much longer and are much more potent. A regular 'dose' for these people could be very harmful.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Utter toss

[Nagognog2]

By making substances like MDMA illegal for all purposes, it takes them away from trained physicians to oversee the use thereof. Hence there are going to be casualities until demand for them is gone. So either the governments can step up the war to brainwash everyone to always hate drugs, or we can demand an end to prohibition and let the trained people do their job.

No drug is 100% safe for everyone.

[Micklemouse]

Originally Posted by Gareth

1 in 10 people have an inability to metabolise MDMA in the same way that the rest of the population does. For these people, MDMA and, hence the effects, last much longer and are much more potent. A regular 'dose' for these people could be very harmful.

Any chance of a reference to the research stating this?

[Tony Blair]

Originally Posted by Gareth

1 in 10 people have an inability to metabolise MDMA in the same way that the rest of the population does. For these people, MDMA and, hence the effects, last much longer and are much more potent. A regular 'dose' for these people could be very harmful.

haha, yeah right. Look at it this way. Every weekend in the UK, 10,000 people go to various clubs and get pilled up.

If 1000 people died every weekend, we'd sure know about it

[Jatelka]

SWIJ thinks the origin of this myth relates to the attached paper: A study done on 10 (count em) individuals!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP2D6

The prevalence of CYP2D6 poor metabolisers is approximately 6-10% amongst Caucasian populations, but is lower in most other ethnic groups such as Asians (2%) [4]. In African Americans, however, the frequency of poor metabolizers is greater than for Caucasians (1.6% vs. 0.44%) [2]. The occurrence of CYP2D6 ultrarapid metabolisers appears to be greater amongst Middle Eastern and North African populations [3].
This variability is accounted for by the differences in the prevalence of various CYP2D6 alleles amongst the populations - appoximately 10% of Caucasians appear to have the non-functional CYP2D6*4 allele[1] while approximately 50% of Asians possess the CYP2D6*10 allele[1], which should produce decreased CYP2D6 function; however this still appears to be within the normal range and are still grouped as extensive metabolisers.

[Micklemouse]

Very interesting, I'm sure, but what does it mean? Moreover, what does it mean with regards to metabolising mdma?

[Alfa]

Originally Posted by SuperLev

Every weekend in the UK, 10,000 people go to various clubs and get pilled up.

That figure is highly unlikely. I don't know where those figures come from, but here in the Netherlands we have an estimate of 5.000 per weekend. Now compare the number of citizens of the Netherlands to those of the UK. Your number would suggest xtc use in the UK would be 5 times lower than in Holland. i.e. that the English are very tame, which is even more unlikely

[Tony Blair]

Those figures come from my head as a complete stab in the dark (well, based on a knowledge of how many events are on at any weekend in the UK and how many people they can hold / will get in)

Thinking about it, I believe the figure is 500,000 people take MDMA per weekend worldwide (somebody correct me if wrong, cant seem to find much info today)... So my original point still stands; if 50,000 people died each weekend from it, we'd sure as hell know about it!

Originally Posted by SuperLev

Those figures come from my head as a complete stab in the dark (well, based on a knowledge of how many events are on at any weekend in the UK and how many people they can hold / will get in)

Thinking about it, I believe the figure is 500,000 people take MDMA per weekend worldwide (somebody correct me if wrong, cant seem to find much info today)... So my original point still stands; if 50,000 people died each weekend from it, we'd sure as hell know about it!

Although I can't find any sources at the moment, I've heard that there are figures ranging from 500,000 - 700,000 weekly users of ecstasy in the UK.
On the BBC website it says there are around 1,200,000 users of ecstasy in the UK (so around half of them take E weekly and the other half are probably fortnightly/monthly/seasonal users)

2003 stats (which is lower than 2006):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...ml/default.stm

Ecstasy
Estimated no. users: 614,000
Users, % of population: 2.0 (1,160,000 - if there are 56-58 million people in the UK)
Deaths, 2003: 18/33**

**: All E&W figures refer to mentions on a death certificate where cause of death is listed as drug poisoning. The first figure is where it is the only drug mentioned, the second is total number of mentions for that drug.

[Tony Blair]

Well, in cany case, it only serves to show my point moreso

[psyche]

So ecstasy is also metabolised by 2D6? That's suprising.
2D6 also metabolises DXM->DXO, but if it's a weaker version, most DXM will be metabolised to 3-Methoxymorphinan instead, thus modifying and prolonging(?) effects. Same enzyme also metabolises about 10% of the codeine to morphine. It's action is called O-demethylation and it removes the methoxy-group and replaces it with hydroxyl.

My understanging is that if you have weaker version of that enzyme you just have prolonged exposure to MDMA, being more ruff on your brain and inducing more depency and withdrawal.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good info