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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
Overdosing on "ecstasy" scare stories; why are female sportswriters whining?
Jul 14, 1999 | The big E
BY DAWN MacKEEN
(07/07/99)
Ah, it's that same article again. A new drug arrives, or an old favorite becomes fashionable again, and we're served up the same old warnings, either the drug is so addictive that one hit will make you an addict (cocaine, crack, marijuana [during the '30s], heroin), or so dangerous that one hit will cause permanent brain damage (LSD, X, DMT).
Or maybe not -- other researchers find no problems or inconclusive results. Gosh, it's all so scary; you'd best stick to alcohol and nicotine, the government-sanctioned drugs of society. The government has cried wolf on so many drugs that even if MDMA is a one-way instant route to brain damage (doubtful), no one will believe the warnings until it's too late.
-- Travis Hartnett
I had the experience of watching my former roommate go to the psychiatric ward. After taking the drug and having fun for a night, she could no longer sleep, she couldn't concentrate and she couldn't verbalize a complete thought. She spent nine days in a clinic, suffering from depression, paranoid and very scared. The doctors there thought she would die from such a shock to her system. Luckily she has recovered. She ended up having to go through massive amounts of drug therapy; she had to restabilize her thought processes, her sleeping and eating patterns and so forth. Sadly enough, she also dropped out of school the semester she was to graduate from college, and is still paying dearly for the consequences.
All she started out with was $25, a pill and a glass of water. And look where it got her.
-- Margaret A. Dessypris
Blacksburg, Va.
Bill Hayley's model of testing ecstasy is already in place in the Netherlands. The government provides free ecstasy testing to make sure their children are not getting an adulterated product. Amsterdam has established regulations for rave events, calling for air-conditioning, cheap soft drinks and chill-out rooms. I queried several coffee-shop owners in Amsterdam about the impact of ecstasy on their culture. The response was overwhelmingly positive, saying that ecstasy had reduced youth violence and contributed to the reduction of street thuggery. The pharmacological nuances of individual ecstasy use are being heavily scrutinized. Are there quantifiable social benefits that are being ignored/overlooked?
-- Tim Fuller
After 10 years of rave culture in the U.K., we're fed up with being told about this "evil" drug. We're sick of the double standards that shriek hysteria about one girl's death when our mates have suffocated in their own vomit after a night out on the beers, have gotten pissed up and wrapped their car around a tree, have gotten knifed outside a pub by some drunken lads. We're sick of seeing our parents coughing their lungs up, wasting away from chemotherapy that's supposed to kill their cancers slightly faster than it kills their own bodies.
If you wanted to stop young people dying, then write about alcohol and tobacco. Hell, write about sniffing glue; that kills 10 times as many people in the U.K. than E does.
The scare stories about E arise for two reasons. The first, of course, is money. Brewers and cigarette manufacturers pay taxes; people selling E don't. The second reason that E gets so much attention is that its users are young and middle class, not the trouble-makers you'd find sniffing glue or taking dodgy drugs like speed or smack. Heaven forbid that these bright young things should lose their faith in the authorities. If they did that, then some of them might not get jobs, buy cars or saddle themselves with mortgages! It would be the end of civilization as we know it!
-- Jez Weston
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