> > Don't drown yourself by drinking too much...water. Yes, you can O.D. on water [...]

> I've heard about a couple of teenagers who died from drinking too much water. They'd taken ecstasy and had heard that it dehydrated the body, so they drank way too much water.
>
> I don't know if this is true, but it was on the news a couple of years ago, I think it was in England.
>
> ding"water water everywhere"dong

Ecstacy, or MDMA, interferes with feelings of satiation. It also causes temporary kidney failure. Instead of water traveling to the kidneys to be flushed out, it is absorbed into the body's cells and causes extreme water retention. This deprives certain organs of needed water and overwaters other cells which don't need it, causing a paradoxical dehydration. Coupled with violent exercise which further dehydrates the body and causes extreme thirst, an MDMA user might be compelled to drink and drink. Unfortunately, users report that no matter how much water they drink, it feels like it's emptying out their sides and "not hitting the spot." Even drinking an abundant amount of water appears to barely satiate the person.

The drug may cause the user to continue drinking until s/he dies of either a ruptured bladder, or of heart failure from electrolyte sodium/potassium imbalance due to the water dilution.