A YOUNG man has died after being given a soft drink spiked with the

rave drug ecstasy, doctors at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow

revealed yesterday.

Details emerged as police on Merseyside announced that they had

launched an investigation into the case of Cadbury's Flake advert girl

Rachel Brown.

The 25-year-old former Vogue model remains ''poorly'' in Liverpool's

Broadgreen Hospital after apparently being given the designer drug

ecstasy at a 21st birthday party in the city more than a week ago.

Friends believe she was not aware she was taking the drug, which left

her in a confused, erratic state. They fear she may be permamently

damaged.

The Glasgow victim is the latest in a series of young people who have

arrived at the Southern General's Institute of Neurological Sciences

suffering from strokes brought on by ecstasy or amphetamines.

Like Rachel, the 20-year-old man did not know he was taking the drug.

Writing in the Scottish Medical Journal, the doctors say he was taken to

a pub one lunchtime by friends. He abstained from alcohol but his soft

drink was spiked with ecstasy.

He was carried home apparently asleep, but lapsed into a coma and was

taken to the Southern General attached to a ventilator. Brain scans

revealed a blood clot and swelling of blood vessels in the skull.

Surgeons performed an emergency operation but the young man succumbed

to a combination of severe brain swelling and torrential bleeding. He

was declared brain dead the following day.

Over the same ten-week period, two women and a 16-year-old boy were

treated at the hospital for effects of ecstasy or amphetamines. The boy

had also been drinking with friends and had his cider spiked with

ecstasy. He was treated for a blood clot in his brain and made a good

recovery.

One of the women, aged 22, developed epileptic seizures as a result of

a blood clot. An anonymous phone caller stated that she had taken

amephetamine sulphate before taking ill. The other woman, aged 30,

admitted taking a mixture of ecstasy and amphetamine at a party before

her symptoms. Doctors also found a large clot but the woman recovered.

Doctors at the Southern General say amphetamines, crack, or

adulterated forms of ecstasy can cause a rush of blood to the head,

bursting a blood vessel and bringing damaging pressure to bear on the

brain.

By February this year, five young people had suffered permanent brain

damage after taking one or other drug, and a sixth may have died in what

neuro-surgeons at the hospital described as an epidemic.