{"id":10874,"date":"2015-04-12T19:42:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T19:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=10874"},"modified":"2017-09-21T12:22:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T12:22:22","slug":"club-drug-molly-causes-hospitalizations-at-wesleyan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2015\/04\/club-drug-molly-causes-hospitalizations-at-wesleyan\/","title":{"rendered":"Club Drug \u2018Molly\u2019 Causes Hospitalizations at Wesleyan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Several students and visitors from Wesleyan University were hospitalized on February 22 after taking the club drug MDMA.\u00a0U.S. DEA\/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS\/REUTERS<\/span><\/p>\n

At least 11 people from the Wesleyan University campus in Middletown, Connecticut,\u00a0were hospitalized on Sunday with symptoms consistent with drug overdoses. School officials and emergency responders are blaming MDMA, also known as Molly, a form of the drug ecstasy that medical experts say has become increasingly popular on college campuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though some reports said 11 people had received medical treatment, Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth put the number at 12 in an email to students on Monday. That includes 10 students and two visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI ask all students: Please, please stay away from illegal substances, the use of which can put you in extreme danger. One mistake can change your life forever,\u201d Roth wrote. \u201cAnd please keep those still hospitalized in your hearts and minds. Please join me in supporting their recovery with your prayers, thoughts and friendship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement on Monday, a Middletown Police Department spokeswoman, Lieutenant Heather Desmond, wrote that her department would be involved in an investigation into \u201cthe origin of the drugs taken\u201d and to \u201cdetermine the extent of the criminal involvement in the case.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Middlesex Hospital tells\u00a0Newsweek\u00a0<\/i>it treated 11 people, three of whom are still there and four of whom were airlifted by helicopter to Hartford Hospital. She could not comment on the conditions of the three patients there. A spokeswoman for Hartford Hospital confirmed that four people were there. She too could not speak to their conditions. The police spokeswoman wrote that two individuals are in critical condition and two are in serious condition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Middletown Fire Chief Robert Kronenberger tells\u00a0Newsweek<\/i>\u00a0his department made seven runs to Wesleyan related to the incident on Sunday after receiving calls between 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. It rendered aid to eight individuals, including two people in a single dorm room. \u201cWe saw the trend and we worked with the university and the police department to notify them of the trend,\u201d Kronenberger says. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had anything to this extent,\u201d he says, referring to health and safety issues at Wesleyan. \u201cA couple of them were in some serious dire straits,\u201d he says about the students, adding that they were cooperative. \u201cAs a parent of two college-age students, this definitely concerns me and hopefully something to this extent will open eyes,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wesleyan\u2019s student newspaper,\u00a0The\u00a0Wesleyan Argus,<\/i>\u00a0first reported<\/a><\/span>\u00a0about the incident on its website on Sunday after the school\u2019s vice president for student affairs, Michael Whaley, sent a series of emails to students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medical experts say MDMA use on college campuses has grown in recent years, and while there have been reports of bad reactions to the drug, it appears the Wesleyan incident is the most widespread.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2013, a University of Virginia sophomore\u00a0collapsed<\/a><\/span>\u00a0at a nightclub after taking MDMA and later died. Students at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York; Plymouth State University in Plymouth,\u00a0New Hampshire; and Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas have also died after taking the drug. In 2013, organizers of the Electric Zoo music festival in New York City cut the event short<\/a><\/span>\u00a0after two people died while taking MDMA, including a University of New Hampshire student.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis age group is a risk-taking group that is willing to follow their friend wherever they go, and if the person next to them is popping a pill, then they\u2019re going to do it too,\u201d says Dr. Mark Neavyn, director of medical toxicology at Hartford Hospital, who treats patients there for MDMA overdoses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the popular culture engine kind of made it seem safer in some way,\u201d Neavyn says, referring to references to the drug by the singers Miley Cyrus and Madonna that made headlines.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when it comes to MDMA, people are rarely taking what they think they\u2019re taking, the doctor says.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Neavyn, symptoms of an MDMA overdose include fast heart rate, high blood pressure, delirium, elevated body temperature and alterations in consciousness. Extreme cases could involve cardiac arrhythmia and seizures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wesleyan, which has about 2,900 full-time undergraduate students and 200 graduate students, also apparently dealt with MDMA-related issues last semester.\u00a0As the\u00a0<\/a><\/span>Argus<\/span><\/i>\u00a0reported<\/span><\/a>, the school\u2019s Health Services Department emailed students on September 16 following a series of MDMA-related hospitalizations.<\/span><\/p>\n

One former Wesleyan student from the class of 2011, who requested anonymity when discussing drug use, says the news is not surprising, given the prevalence of drugs on campus. \u201cAnything you can imagine…would be readily available there,\u201d the person says. \u201cI don\u2019t think at Wesleyan you need [a campus event] to take drugs. If it\u2019s sunny, there\u2019s probably a good percentage of people that are taking something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The campus activities calendar did not show any major events scheduled for Saturday or Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another former Wesleyan student from the class of 2012, who also requested anonymity, says the drug culture at Wesleyan is comparable to that at similar schools. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where, much like at those schools, you kind of have an understanding of where you can go to get it and who had it,\u201d the person says. \u201cIf there\u2019s a will there\u2019s a way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

www.newsweek.com<\/a> weds Feb. 2015<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several students and visitors from Wesleyan University were hospitalized on February 22 after taking the club drug MDMA.\u00a0U.S. DEA\/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS\/REUTERS At least 11 people from the Wesleyan University campus in Middletown, Connecticut,\u00a0were hospitalized on Sunday with symptoms consistent with drug overdoses. School officials and emergency responders are blaming MDMA, also known as Molly, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,41,33,62,10,64,91,14,36,19,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-drug-use-effects-on-foetus","category-ecstasy","category-education","category-education-sector","category-health","category-legal-highs","category-social-affairs","category-treatment-addiction","category-usa","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}