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Cocaine is a stimulant psychoactive drug. Comparisons of its population harm require exposure denominators and consistent definitions of drug-related outcomes, rather than death counts alone.

MDMA is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a psychoactive drug commonly called ecstasy. A product's street label does not establish its measured chemical contents. Epidemiological comparisons should distinguish single-substance outcomes from outcomes attributed to several drugs.

Mephedrone is 4-methylmethcathinone, a synthetic stimulant psychoactive drug. The chemical identity is described in the EUDA synthetic-cathinone profile. In causal inference, an association between increased use and fewer deaths involving another drug does not itself establish substitution: changes in use, population composition and ascertainment must be distinguished.

A psychoactive drug is a substance that changes mental activity, mood or perception. In population causal inference, its per-user adverse-event risk and its total population harm are distinct: the latter also depends on how many people use it, for how long, and on substitution between substances.