Warning over new dance-scene drug

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The drug, benzylpiperazine, or BZP, was taken by an 18-year-old woman who collapsed in a London nightclub and suffered a seizure. She was given emergency treatment in hospital and discharged after 12 hours.

Her case was described by doctors writing in The Lancet medical journal.

They warned colleagues to watch out for other young people suffering adverse reactions to the drug, which was legally available over the counter in the UK until last month.

The active ingredient in BZP is piperazine, which was developed in the 1950s as a veterinary worm medicine.

Recently it has become an increasingly popular alternative to ecstasy and amphetamines, being sold under names such as Pep Twisted, Legal E, Nemesis and Euphoria.

Last month Britain's medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), made the unlicensed sale of the drug illegal.

The case described by Dr David Wood, from Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital, London, and colleagues, involved a girl who bought BZP tablets from a drug dealer. After taking five of the diamond-shaped pills on a May bank holiday weekend in 2006, she collapsed and suffered a seizure lasting 10 minutes.

When she arrived at hospital her pupils were dilated, and her heart racing at 156 beats per minute. Her body temperature and blood pressure had plummeted. She was one of seven patients admitted to the same hospital emergency department with similar symptoms that night.

Chemical analysis of one of the tablets the girl had bought confirmed that it contained BZP. The drug has a chemical structure similar to that of amphetamine. No reliable data on how many people take BZP exists in the UK, said the doctors.