If you knew that those accessories are commonly associated with raves, and you already knew that a rave is a late-night dance party set to electronic music, then you might also know that ecstasy is the reason the sensory toys are popular. Not the only reason - there are ravers who don't use drugs - but a large part of the desire to neon, glow-stick, and costume yourself to dance for long hours is fuelled by euphoria-inducing pills.

The context has moved, however, out of sweaty warehouse dance parties and 30-somethings' feel-good weekends, into the back seats of N-adorned cars and teenage get-togethers. The rave scene reached Canada around 1991. Historically, the risks associated with using ecstasy, or MDMA, were due to the hot, prolonged environment of the dance floors. Hours of physical activity combined with a lack of water was a recipe for overheating, seizures and organ failure.

Not so long ago, Myles Murphy popped "E" caps like they were candy. He and his two buddies would pool their money to buy 21 ecstasy pills during the week from a dealer in school or on the street. Then on the weekend, they'd steal away to someone's basement and throw "mini-raves" for themselves, glow sticks and all.

"I couldn't stop, right? It became just something I needed, I liked," said Murphy, who was introduced to the drug in Grade 9 at a party with a bunch of older kids. These days, however, the gregarious 19-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C., has a different take on the so-called "love drug" that is so popular among clubbers and partygoers and whose properties, it is commonly said, jack up the senses to the point where you can "see the music" and "hear the colours."

"It's one of the cheapest, dirtiest drugs," Murphy said. "You don't know what's in it." The warning is being echoed by police and public health officials in the wake of a spate of ecstasy-related deaths in Western Canada. Many of the deaths -- nine in Alberta and five in B.C. -- have been linked to ecstasy that has been tainted with para methoxymethamphetamine or PMMA, dubbed by some drug experts as meth's "ugly cousin."

A 16-year-old Langley boy died early Sunday morning after reportedly mixing ecstasy with other pharmaceutical drugs. The B.C. Coroners Service is now investigating whether paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA), an adulterant added to ecstasy believed to have recently killed at least 10 people in B.C. and Alberta, may have been a factor.

The boy reportedly took the drugs on Saturday night with several other people, according to the agency. Early Sunday, they heard him collapse and called 911. Paramedics transported the teen to Langley Memorial Hospital, however he could not be revived. It is not known what other drugs may have been in the boy's system.

"Toxicology testing will be completed as quickly as possible to determine whether the use of ecstasy was a factor in the death, and if so, whether the ecstasy tablet included the presence of PMMA," the Coroners Service said in a news release Monday. It is also reviewing the province's 16 ecstasy-related deaths in 2011, as PMMA had never before been found in ecstasy and was not routinely tested for previously.

Paramethoxy-metamphetamine ( PMMA ) has been associated with at least five ecstasy deaths in B.C. over the last six months. On Jan. 16, the BC Coroners Service confirmed that it was investigating a fourth 2012 fatality believed to be the result of an ecstasy overdose - a 16-year-old Langley male.

"It's a learning process for us; we're gathering information as we go along," said chief coroner Lisa Lapointe. Over the past six years, the rates of ecstasy-related fatalities in the province have more than doubled.

Whereas 2006 saw seven deaths in the province, the three years leading up to 2011 each saw at least 20 people lose their life to the drug. Last weekend's death brings the early 2012 count to four. "Does that mean that we'll see these numbers continue to climb over the years? We certainly hope not," Lapointe said.

The rate of hospitalizations following overdose skyrocketed in people aged 18 to 24, the new study found: overdoses involving alcohol in combination with other drugs increased 76%; overdoses involving drugs other than alcohol rose 55%; and those involving alcohol alone went up 25%.

The most striking rise was seen in overdoses involving prescription painkillers, which leapt 122% over the same period.

In 2008, researchers estimated that there were 114,000 hospitalizations for single or multiple drug overdoses, 29,000 for combination alcohol and other drug overdoses and 29,000 for alcohol-only ODs.

"I think most people know that crystal meth is exceedingly dangerous, and I think we've seen campaigns from every level of government not to use it. I think most youth have got that message," explained Leduc Community Drug Action Committee (LCDAC) coordinator Heather Graham, who cautioned that more education is still needed.

"What's being marketed as ecstasy in Leduc is actually crystal meth. So it's still an issue, and youth are accessing it without realizing it."

"We don't see a lot of meth out here," agreed Leduc RCMP Drug Enforcement officer John Baker, who noted that education shedding a negative light on the drug has been effective. "It's sort of a niche drug for some people, since it does have a stigma."

According to the Government of Alberta's Premier's Task Force on Crystal Meth, it is an illegal "easy and inexpensive to make" drug with recipes including household ingredients like paint thinner, drain cleaner and cold medications. Crystal meth is a highly addictive stimulant that causes a long high lasting from eight to 24 hours, and it is the smokeable form of the drug methamphetamine, a derivative of amphetamine. Meth users report increased concentration and extended periods of insomnia, along with side effects such as psychosis, seizures, heart attacks and strokes.

Police and social agencies are monitoring an epidemic of abuse of so-called bath salts that threatens to spill over the border from the U.S. into Canada and onto the streets of Kamloops.

Although there's no sign of the designer drug in the city yet, its easy access via the Internet makes it likely that the dangerous narcotic will come to town, Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said Wednesday.

"The natural migration of these types of things is into Canada," said Learned, adding the drug has also turned up in Europe.

"With the proliferation of availability through Internet purchases, there would be people who are hearing about this and are purchasing it over the Internet."

The products - labelled Red Dove, Ivory Wave and Hurricane Charlie and masquerading as over-the-counter bath salts - are also available via small retail outlets to customers who smoke, snort, inject or eat the chemicals mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone ( MDPV ).

The powder's effects are similar to a methamphetamine, Learned said. They can induce a rapid heart rate, visual hallucinations, paranoia and psychosis.

Some cases in the U.S. involved people engaging in self-mutilation after hallucinating on the drugs. The Washington Post reported that a 21-year-old man in Louisiana committed suicide following three days of delirium after he snorted the chemicals.

Learned heard the powder can cause irreversible damage to livers, kidneys and heart muscles. Some people have ended up on permanent dialysis after use whether they are first time or seasoned drug users, he said, likening the drug's use to playing Russian roulette.

Youth in eastern Ontario have increasingly been raiding their parents' medicine cabinets and throwing parties where they pass around bowls full of various prescription medications, Staff Sgt. Shawn White of the Cornwall Community Police Service told the ongoing Brockville, Ont., coroner's inquest into the 2008 deaths of Dustin King and Donna Bertrand on Monday.

King, 19, and Bertrand, 41, died days apart in the same Brockville, Ont., apartment from overdoses on prescription opiate drugs.

White, head of the force's criminal investigations branch, said the people who attend these parties are misinformed about the potential perils of the drugs they are taking.

“They are often under the mistaken impression that these drugs must be safe if they were prescribed by a doctor,” he said.

White, who is part of a task force set up in eastern Ontario in 2009 to combat oxycodone abuse in the area, said its research indicates teens are increasingly joining the market for illegal consumption of prescription opioids.

Tainted crack and cocaine laced with a chemical that can kill is surfacing in London after years of wreaking havoc in big-city Canada and the U.S.

A nurse with London’s InterCommunity Health Centre discovered an infection caused by the chemical in a cocaine user in January, Henry Eastabrook, a centre outreach worker, confirmed Friday.

The centre is warning outreach and addiction workers in London about the chemical, a livestock deworming agent called levamisole.

“It can kill you if you continue using it. It attacks your immune system,” Eastabrook said.

Levamisole can cause agranuloctyosis, a dangerous reduction of white blood cells, which impairs the body’s ability to fight off even minor infections.

Cocaine and crack users with dark bruises that turn into scabs, often around the ears, or a rapid onset of fevers and chills should head to hospital emergency rooms immediately, the health centre warns.

Self-control in the more than 1,000 New Zealand children who participated in the study was assessed by teachers, parents, observers and the children themselves. It included measures like "low frustration tolerance, lacks persistence in reaching goals, difficulty sticking with a task, over-active, acts before thinking, has difficulty waiting turn, restless, not conscientious."

Fast-forward to adulthood, and the kids scoring lowest on those measures scored highest for things like breathing problems, gum disease, sexually transmitted disease, inflammation, overweight, and high cholesterol and blood pressure, according to an international research team led by Duke University psychologists Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi.

The impulsivity and relative inability to think about the long-term of the lower self-control individuals gave them more difficulty with finances, like savings, home ownership and credit card debt. They also were more likely to be single parents, have a criminal conviction record, and be dependent on alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and harder drugs.

"These adult outcomes were predictable across the entire spectrum of self-control scores, from low to high," Moffitt said.