Doctors give warning on deadly ecstasy cocktails

Doctors have warned that mixing ecstasy with prescription
medicines can kil.

Clubbers who take antidepressants to prevent an ecstasy
'hangover' are also at risk.

Prescription drugs often carry warnings about possible
hazardous interactions with other medicines, but the risk of
combining them with illicit substances is never mentioned.

A report today in New Scientist highlights the potential
dangers and criticises pharmaceutical companies for not
making the risks known.

It details the case of Philip Kay, 32, a tax inspector, who
died in a London nightclub in November from an ecstasy
overdose.

Friends said he only took two ecstasy tablets the night he
died but drug levels in his blood were equivalent to 22
tablets. Mr Kay, who was HIV positive, was also taking a
prescription drug, Ritonavir, to control his HIV infection.

The magazine says that Ritonavir interferes with the liver's
ability to dispose of drugs like ecstasy and, taken together,
they may be dangerous.

Drug use is common among HIVpositive people in Scotland and
one of the country's leading AIDS experts, Dr Ray Brettle of
the City Hospital in Edinburgh told New Scientist that
pharmaceutical companies should be warning about the danger.

Gordon Boyd, head of clinical development in Europe for
Abbott Laboratories, which makes Ritonavir, said that to
issue warnings would be seen to be condoning drug abuse.

Dr Brettle said the dangers could be made clear without
seeming to support illegality.

Other combinations are also thought to pose a danger. Prozac,
sometimes used to try to prevent an ecstasy hangover, is
thought to have similar effects on the liver as Ritonavir.