LASTING HARM TO CHILD IS UNLIKELY

Medical Briefing - Dr Thomas Stuttaford

ECSTASY, not very well known to the average clubber as
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, is related to both the amphetamines - the
purple hearts of the clubbers' grandparents and mescaline, which was a
hallucinogen favoured by the flappers in the 1920s.

Nobody would recommend Ecstasy as a suitable teething preparation for a
one-year-old child, particularly as individual response varies so enormously
to this substance; but, on the other hand, it is unlikely that a child,
unless he has an idiosyncratic response to Ecstasy will succumb, or even
suffer long-term ill effects. The baby was evidently showing signs of
cerebral hyper-excitation and was grinding his teeth and looking generally
distrait which would be amphetamine-type effects. Suggestions that he was
hallucinating, representative of the mescalin influence, must be
supposition, since one-year-olds are pushed to say mum and dada and their
more vivid distortions of reality would hardly be expressed coherently.

A more serious anxiety with Ecstasy is inevitably its effect on the
inappropriate secretion of the anti-diuretic hormone - so that people who
have taken it can become waterlogged. For these reasons its misuse can lead
to swelling of the brain. The child's prompt admission to hospital will have
prevented any persistent troubles from this effect.