SAY NO OR YOU MAY DIE, COPS SAY

After linking nine deaths to ecstasy - seven of which were due to the
addition of a toxic chemical - police were blunt in their message to
those thinking of using the synthetic drug. Calgary police are now
linking nine deaths since June 2011 with the party drug ecstasy.

Staff Sgt. Mike Bossley from the drug unit said Monday toxicology
testing found the presence of PMMA- a deadly compound sometimes added
to synthetic drugs - in seven of the overdose deaths.

"We don't know what else to say about this anymore - if you use
ecstasy, there's a high likelihood that you might die," he said.

"People have to realize this is very, very serious and they need to
stop using this drug."

The most recent death came just before 7 a.m. Sunday when paramedics
were called to a home in the northeast community of Falconridge where
they found a 37-year-old man dead.

Police said drugs were seized at the scene and they suspect the man
had taken ecstasy. Two other people at the house, a man and a woman
who admitted to police they had also taken drugs, were transported to
hospital in stable condition, said EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux.

That came one day after two Edmonton women in their 20s were taken to
hospital from a downtown hotel - one in lifethreatening condition -
after taking ecstasy.

One of the women has since been released while the more serious of
the two has been upgraded to stable condition.

Police in Nelson, B.C. were also dealing with an ecstasyrelated
overdose on the weekend after a 21-year-old man fell unconscious and
had a seizure outside a hotel in the town about 620 kilometres west
of Calgary. The man, who i s f r om Nelson, was taken to hospital in
serious condition but had improved enough to be released on Monday.