form: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-20327848

Scotland’s largest police force has issued a warning about pink-coloured tablets being sold as ecstasy which contain “potentially fatal substances”.

Strathclyde Police said anyone taking the pills, which contain AMT or 5-IT, could suffer increased heart rate, elevated core temperature and seizures.

The force said the tablets have been described as having a cherry logo on one side and a half score on the other.

AMT or 5-IT are not classed as controlled substances.

Supt Kirk Kinnell said: “These substances are unreliable, unpredictable and very dangerous.

‘Devastating effect’

“Users may believe that they have taken ecstasy, and it is very likely that they will suffer from a significant negative reaction.”

Supt Kinnell said the pills were “not covered by any form of quality control”.

“Users need to be aware of the dangers and understand the potentially devastating effect these pills can have on their health,” he said.

“We are continuing to take this matter extremely seriously and extensive police inquiries are ongoing to establish the source of these drugs and every effort is being made to track down and arrest those responsible for selling these drugs as quickly as possible.”

Strathclyde Police said additional patrols had been deployed in Glasgow city centre to carry out searches at a number of venues connected to the inquiry.

It comes after nine people were admitted to hospital in the early hours of Saturday morning after taking a combination of tablets and powders in Glasgow city centre.

The force advised that revellers, particularly over the festive period, should avoid taking the pink tablets and notify police if they were being sold.

Glasgow Royal Infirmary emergency medicine doctor Richard Stevenson said AMT and 5-IT had “been implicated in deaths in Europe”.

He said: “Early assessment and intervention is paramount to prevent fatalities. There is also a real risk of interaction with commonly prescribed medications, as well as an interaction with alcohol, that may be fatal.

“Most cases experience a life-threatening rise in body temperature and extremely fast heart rate and can display a range of bizarre behaviours as well as being extremely confused.

“The body will overheat and there will be signs of delirium and agitation. Without immediate medical treatment this collection of symptoms could prove fatal.”

Cheryl McCormack, 17, of Abbotsford, died after popping ecstasy with her high school friends during a sleepover. They thought it would help them lose weight.

Leonard Timothy’s heart stopped beating after coming home from the bar one night — the 38-year-old Red Deer father of two had taken an ecstasy pill.

Abbotsford Police Cheryl McCormack, 17, died on Dec. 22 from taking ecstasy at a sleepover. She and three other girls had taken the illicit drug in order to lose or manage their weight.

The mother of 18-year-old Calgarian Daniel Dahl remembers watching her son’s brains bleed out his nose in the emergency room after he overdosed on ecstasy, his body temperature rising so rapidly that he was cooked from the inside.

These are just some in a spate of ecstasy-related deaths that have marched a morbid path through southern Alberta and British Columbia in the past few months, spurring public awareness campaigns and scaring parents and partiers. Over the past year and until now, there have been 19 deaths in B.C. and 12 in Alberta related to ecstasy overdoses —at least five in the past few weeks alone. Thirteen of those total deaths, which all occurred late last year and last month, have been linked to paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) a chemical turning up inside Canadian ecstasy — which was once the street name for MDMA, or methylenedioxymethamphetamine, but has come to mean any pill passing itself off as MDMA even if it’s been so adulterated as to hardly be like the original drug.

PMMA, known on the street as “Doctor Death,” is considered five times more toxic than run-of-the-mill street ecstasy. It was in the pill that Mr. Timothy took. As police try to trace the path of this especially lethal brand of ecstasy, they are once again spreading the message that law enforcement, schools and other government bodies have been spreading for decades: Don’t touch the stuff. Just say no.

At the same time, a growing chorus of harm reduction advocates say that message isn’t working. The use of illegal drugs has not declined in recent years and there is a slice of the population that is simply determined to engage in risky behaviour, like taking drugs.

The way to prevent these deaths, these advocates say, may actually be to accept that people will still take ecstasy despite the warnings and give them a safer means of doing so. If we ignore users and hope they stop, they say, the deaths will continue.