The disunited states of ecstasy

At an all-day conference on MDMA, ravers, researchers and anti-drug crusaders debate its pros and cons. Consensus? Just say maybe.

By Janelle Brown

Feb 5, 2001 | On the first Friday in February, George Zimmer, unabashed CEO of the Men's Wearhouse -- the king of perfectly tailored suits, I guarantee it -- is standing under the crisp winter sky outside the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco's wooded Presidio. He's smoking a cigar and squinting through purple-tinted sunglasses as a magenta-and-platinum-haired boy anxiously tries to explain raves. Zimmer, wearing a perfectly fitted black suit and black mock turtleneck, stares quizzically at a small audience of earnest rave veterans and asks, incredulously: "So, do people actually talk at raves?"

Zimmer has taken ecstasy before, he hesitantly tells me when I corner him for an interview, but only for "therapeutic purposes" with his wife. He is here today, at the State of Ecstasy conference, because he is interested in "dialogue" about the drug; and because the conference's organizer, Marsha Rosenbaum, is a good friend of his. Although one would not, perhaps, expect a kitschy purveyor of affordable tailored suits to be an ecstasy spokesperson, Zimmer isn't out of place.

The State of Ecstasy conference is being touted as the "first of its kind," a place where researchers, academics, therapists, drug advocates and anti-drug crusaders -- along with a healthy dose of blissful drug users -- can sit down and talk about the love drug and its rise in American culture. Sponsored by the Lindesmith Center/Drug Policy Foundation and the San Francisco Medical Society, the conference has the smack of medical legitimacy but the vibe of a love-in. About 300 people from all walks of life have assembled here today for eight hours to listen to experts discuss everything from how MDMA is addling our brains to the ways rave culture is demonized to how we all need to join forces against the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Across the lawn from Zimmer, for example, is Ann Shulgin, kind of the Mother Goddess of e-therapy and wife of research chemist Alexander Shulgin, the "Godfather of MDMA," who is generally given credit for rediscovering the drug in 1965. In those days, before ecstasy was made illegal, the Shulgins guided hundreds of people through therapy sessions with the drug. Shulgin was given leave to fiddle with over 200 psychedelics that he synthesized himself; he and his wife were their own guinea pigs.

Ann Shulgin sits on the grass with her white witchy locks splayed about her, smoking a cigarette and courting an audience of adoring young fans. She autographs her book "Tikhal" -- which, she tells me, she wrote entirely under the influence of MDMA, in once-a-week sessions -- for two shy, clean-cut students from San Diego who flew up here to meet her. The maze of wrinkles on her face deepen as she lectures us sternly about kids these days who just go overboard with drugs without learning moderation from their wizened elders.

"Most of the drug experimentation community is young people, college age or younger unfortunately," she sighs in exasperation. "For the most part, they are completely unaware of the professional people who are involved in this. One of the things about the young community is they don't read. They don't do homework. They take these drugs and depend on their peer group to tell them to mix this with that. They should be reading to find out what exactly it is that they're doing. But they don't. So they really don't know about this level -- the scientists, the professors. They are always completely ignorant about it."

But today the kids are listening for once. This conference has brought a bizarre mix of people to the Presidio -- from new agey types like Shulgin straight from the Carlos Castaneda school of drug enlightenment, to hardened researchers who speak not in words but in compounds, to pink-haired ravers who swap tips on tonight's best parties. But this is fitting of this strange drug, which has more kinship with Leary's LSD than with club drugs like cocaine or GHB, and which (according to some scientists) is turning an entire generation of youth into babbling hug-bunnies who may collapse into brain-damaged depression when the long-term effects of ecstasy are finally revealed.

(But hey, we're young and that's not for a while to come, right? In the meantime, Peace, Love, Unity and Respect!)

The day is split into three main sections, roughly fitting each of the three core demographics battling it out here. The morning is dedicated to the therapeutic uses of ecstasy, where the Shulgins reign supreme and ecstasy is extolled as a wonder drug that can bring couples together, heal parent-child rifts, solve depression and -- hell, why not? -- bring about world peace. The early afternoon is for the academic doomsayers, the Ph.Ds and researchers and assorted professionals, who will throw indecipherable charts on the wall and explain why ecstasy users' brains are rotting. The ravers get to finish off the day with an explanation of dance culture and why pill-popping teenagers deserve a break.

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