By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

RAVE DRUG ecstasy is, after an absence of seven years, again involved in drug deaths in Tayside.

Official figures released revealed there were no drug-related deaths in the region involving ecstasy between 1997 and 2003 inclusive.

But the statistics released by the General Register Office for Scotland record three involving ecstasy in 2004 and two last year.

Ninewells accident and emergency specialist Brodie Paterson said one of the difficulties he and colleagues have when treating people involved in drugs overdoses is working out what has been taken.

“The problem we get is people come in saying they have taken ecstasy but they have no idea what they have taken or what is in the tablets.”

He said in the 1990s, when the rave culture was at its height, the reason people died was most commonly not because of the drug they took but “over drinking” and taking in massive amounts of water.

He said the figures did not necessarily point to a new pattern of more deaths involving ecstasy.

“Our drugs overdose experience in A&E normally involves cocktails of drugs with alcohol. These are occasional overdoses and we don’t see that many of them.”

He said the other “classical presentation” of an overdose was a prisoner just released from jail.

“The prisoner gets out and goes back to his usual dose having not had drugs, or very little. He has lost his tolerance. They go back to their previous dose and, of course, it’s too much.”

He stressed it was “not a common occurrence” for newly-released prisoners to arrive in the A&E department having overdosed on illegal drugs.

“But it does happen.”

It emerged earlier this week that the number of deaths caused by illegal drugs across Scotland is at its lowest level since 1998.

Of the 336 deaths last year, 204 involved known or suspected drug addicts. More than half were heroin-related.