Beware Of The Pink Superman Pills Being Sold As Ecstasy

A deadly pink pill bearing the Superman logo and being sold as ecstasy has prompted a 'red alert', amid fears it could be making its way to the UK.The Trimbos Institute, a Dutch non-profit and publicly-funded mental health and addiction research centre, issued the warning after the tablet appeared on the market in the Netherlands.

It came as the Amsterdam Dance Event got underway, a five-day electronic music festival that claims to be the world's biggest of its kind."The risk of a fatal dosage here is much higher than normal," Sander Rigter, a drug and monitoring policy researcher at Trimbos, told The Independent."It's a dangerous tablet."The red-alert warning, which are issued as rarely as once a year in the Netherlands, said the pill “can lead to fatal overheating, as well as heart, liver and kidney failure".Mr Rigter said a "recreational" drug user, who bought the pill, handed it to Drugs Information and Monitoring System (DIMS) test centre last week for research.The pill was found to contain a high dose of PMMA (para-methoxy-n-methylamphetamine), which is a toxic psychedelic substance, when "99 times out of 100" the pill would contain the less risky - but still potentially dangerous - MDMA.Experts say the tablet gives the illusion of a “low-dose” similar to the effects of MDMA, but that physical side-effects kick in an hour after of digestion.T

“Do not use this pill” a statement issued by the institute said.