ECSTASY USER RESUSCITATED BY EMS STAFF

An all-night dance party came crashing to a halt for a young Calgary man
after he overdosed on ecstasy early yesterday morning. A security guard at
the Max Bell Arena found the 20-year-old man in the facility's bathroom at
about 4 a.m.

"The young man was found to be unconscious, with decreased respirations, by
the on-site paramedic," said Emergency Medical Services spokesman Doug Odney.

The party-goer had ingested a large amount of alcohol mixed with the drug
GHB, a liquid form of the rave drug ecstasy.

UNRESPONSIVE

"Upon arrival, paramedics found him to be unresponsive and performed
life-support procedures," Odney said.

Paramedics treated the man at the scene, inserting a tube into his airway
to help him breathe.

He was then rushed to Peter Lougheed hospital in serious condition. GHB --
gamma-hydroxybutyrate -- is also known on the streets as Grievous Bodily
Harm or G.

INCREASING USAGE

According to Alberta Children's Services, the drug GHB has been
increasingly involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes and fatalities.

It is also often manufactured in home laboratories, they say. Ecstasy
drains the brain of an important chemical called serotonin, and can cause
users to dance to the point of exhaustion. At that point they may collapse,
and even die.

Although ecstasy causes dehydration, drinking too much water can cause the
brain to swell.