Phoenix 24
A recognizable image conceals an unpredictable chemical threat.
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands’ Trimbos Institute has issued a Red Alert over dangerous pills shaped like the head of US President Donald Trump. Several tablets were recently submitted to the country’s drug-testing network, where laboratory analysis detected a high concentration of para-methoxymethamphetamine, commonly known as PMMA. The institute has urged people not to consume them under any circumstances.
The tablets display Trump’s face on one side and the inscriptions “NL” and “Trump” on the reverse. Samples have appeared in different colours, including green and yellow. Their distinctive appearance may help authorities identify the immediate danger, but specialists warn that colour, shape and branding cannot reliably reveal what an illicit tablet contains because identical designs can circulate with different chemical compositions.
PMMA resembles MDMA, the psychoactive substance normally associated with ecstasy, but it takes longer to produce noticeable effects. A person who assumes the first tablet has failed may consume another dose before the PMMA has taken full effect. This delay substantially increases the risk of overdose, dangerous overheating, seizures, unconsciousness and death.
The warning represents the highest level of public notification used by the Dutch Drugs Information and Monitoring System when testing identifies an acute health threat. At the time of the announcement, Trimbos had received no confirmed reports of serious illness or fatalities associated with these specific tablets. Their classification as potentially lethal is therefore based on their verified chemical content and known toxic effects, not on recorded deaths from the current batch.
Producing, selling and possessing ecstasy remains illegal in the Netherlands, although recreational consumption is widespread, particularly at clubs and music festivals. A Dutch government report estimated that approximately 550,000 people used the drug during a single year. The country’s testing network does not make illicit substances safe, but it allows health authorities to detect unusually dangerous products and issue targeted warnings before casualties occur.
Trump-shaped pills have circulated in Europe before, including thousands of orange tablets seized by German police in 2017. Their reappearance illustrates how manufacturers use familiar political and cultural imagery as informal branding. The immediate public-health concern, however, is not the face pressed into the tablet but the toxic substance hidden inside it.
Hechos que no se doblan. / Facts that do not bend.