How bad is ecstacy?

[Cecil]

So, as far as I can tell, prolonged ecstacy use may cause brain damage, but how much is not clear and it doesn't seem any worse than regular drinking, it is very rare to overdose and is not especially addictive. Very few deaths can be attributed to ecstacy, directly or indirectly. The biggest problem is the matter of quality control, which is mainly caused by the drug's illegal status. And yet ecstacy is classed as one of the worst drugs possible. Weird.

Spot on. Ecstasy is classed so harshly for the same reason we have the Patriot Act: hasty political overreaction in the midst of a perceived crisis. The only difference is that the "ecstasy crisis" was manufactured by the media, who for years headlined every ecstasy-attributable death.

Fanning the flames was the fact that the deaths were attributable to a "drug", and not something benign like say, alcohol.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Spot on. Ecstasy is classed so harshly for the same reason we have the Patriot Act: hasty political overreaction in the midst of a perceived crisis. The only difference is that the "ecstasy crisis" was manufactured by the media, who for years headlined every ecstasy-attributable death.

Fanning the flames was the fact that the deaths were attributable to a "drug", and not something benign like say, alcohol.

As I understand the history of E, it was originally developed as an aid to psychoanalysis and therapeutic counselling (in the 1950's). It's advantage was its ability to help people in dropping their inhibitions, and thus being able to more fully deal with whatever the problem was at hand that the patient, and therapist, were working through.

The only hazard I had heard of previously was the problem of dehydration, which apparently came up a few years back at a rave in, get this, Needles CA. (It's hot and dry out there.)

Grateful to all for the further enlightenment on other hazards of E.

DR

 

[kellyb]

Here's an interesting article (originally published in Playboy magazine) on the guy who created MDMA, and the history of the drug.

http://www.bruceeisner.com/new_culture/2004/03/shulgin_article.html

 

[noblecaboose]

Don't mess with "e", it can do seriously evil things to your head.

Going home from a rave at Raindance in 1991 we stopped at a petrol/gas station for snacks and drinks. I bought a Cadbury's Flake and it tasted absolutely disgusting.

Anything that makes you think chocolate tastes bad ... well, there oughta be a law ...

I think it just revealed to you the truth: Cadbury's chocolate really is absolutely disgusting. That stuff tastes like cheese and stale cake frosting.

 

[Hindmost]

Ecstacy killed one of my students.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

And I know of at least two users who died of water intoxication. In these two cases, MDMA was not the cause of death...but it did make the users feel ravenously thirsty--many users do not know that you can die from water intoxication.

Yep. I remember that story. People were warning against the dangers of dehydration from Ecstasy...so the poor girl kept drinking more and more water, hoping it would make her feel better.

(Of course, for years afterward, the episode was trotted out on talk shows as an "Ecstasy death".)

It was a classic case of ignorance about a drug having disastrous consequences.
Education is key!
A small dose of table salt can prevent water intoxication. A bag of pretzels could've saved this girl's life.

 

[skeptifem]

well before that happened people would warn you to drink plenty of water to make sure you dont get dehydrated.... that was what literally everyone said that i knew anyway.

 

[Dancing David]

Ecstasy, MDMA, affects the system of neurotransmitters that affect mood, affect and thought. For a simple list of some of the effects you can expect, see
http://www.drdrew.com/Topics/article.asp?id=1136

In the article from Dr. Drew's website, I see that one of the things that MDMA is listed as affecting is serotonin. Serotonin is modulated by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRI's. SSRI's appear to be implied in the mass shootings in schools and other psychotic acts.

On a side issue, what is mmkay?

Sorry that logic is so general and vauge. It is about as useful as saying "Birds fly south in the winter and therefore that is where the snow comes from".

Thanks for spreading general urban myths about SSRIs,

"100 % of murderers were shown to breathe, therefore breathing is dangerous".

 

[Dancing David]

I know that anecdotes aren't solid evidence, but I did a lot of ecstasy at one point in my life and ended up with pretty severe seizures, pretty much every night as I was going to sleep, and every time my mind wandered during the day, for about 6 months after I did it for the last time. I still get very mild ones occasionally. This nasty little effect has apparently been reported by quite a few heavy users (or so I read on somewhere on the net). Whether this is brought on by ecstasy or a contaminant, who knows?

Although I don't regret doing it, I do agree with bassett - life is definitely better. E is a big heap of falsity. And those 6 months were pretty damn scary!

The seizures may not have been seizures, there are a lot of reasons that could have been happening. Especialy around the sleep issue. It would be difficult to evaluate the cause of the shaking without clinical trials with a source that is consistent in it's manufacture.

Any time that one alters brain and peripheral nervous system chemistry there will be consequences.

The use of recreational drugs will have consequences , especialy when the A in MMDA is amphetamine.

 

[Dancing David]

Acute toxicity is rare. Of far greater concern is chronic recreational use and cumulative neurotoxicity.

Not that I am endorsing drug use, but I imagine it is significantlt less than the neurotoxicity of alcohol. Which wipes out ansolutely huge numbers of brain cells.

It can cause a paranoid psychosis that is clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia which may be reversible after a prolonged drug-free state.

True of many substances, especialy the amphetamines and other stimulants. Psychiatrists often wonder which came first. the drug use of the predisposition to psychosis. However prolonged use of stimulants will cause psychosis in most people.

Human studies that suggest that MDMA use (possibly in conjunction with cannabis) can lead to significant cognitive decline in otherwise healthy young people.
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here

Now the deal with canabis is that it impairs the general learning process by wrecking the consolodation (sp?) of mid-term memory into long term memory. The effect of the MJ will decline over time and also is dose dependant.

The issue with MMDA is that it has the A in it.

Stimulants have severe consequences for extended use.

(This is your phramacist, this is the manufacturer.)

One human study has also found, using single photon emission computed tomographic (SPECT) imaging, that heavy use of MDMA is associated with neurotoxic effects on serotonin neurons.

It can cause all sorts of stuff that is for sure. Depends on which structures get trashed the most.

Loss of serotonin neurons could result in a number of neuropsychiatric disorders in which serotonin has been implicated, including depression, anxiety and panic disorder, and disorders of impulse control.

The real problem is seen readily in the methamphetamine users, there is this thing called "methapolar disorder" that is made up by mental health workers. But the issue is, do people with bnipolar disorder seek out methamphetamine like they do alcohol? Or does methamphetamine use trash the limbic system?

Do drugs make you crazy or do they just widen the cracks?

Basically, I'd recommend avoid using it regularly, or not using it at all. We may be incubating a time-bomb of old folk who are dementing well before they would otherwise lapse into Alzheimers and other disorders of cognitive loss.

Alcohol makes the current use of MMDA pale in comparison in terms of long term effects. I am worried about the rise in general amphetamine use. Due to the longterm issue with stimulant use. But then I also wonder about the use of very loud stereos in cars as well(boom cars). Is there going to be a huge number of people with longterm hearing loss in the lower ranges? Will nursing home staf have to talk like mickey mouse?

 

[Dancing David]

I bet any drug that induces feelings of pleasure is going to be bad for you in the long term psychologically, if taken frequently enough.

With all those periods feeling fantastic, everyday life must seem really crap for habitual users.

It may sound terribly old-fashioned, but perhaps the best way to experience pleasure is to work hard at something and get your enjoyment from the successes along the way?

there are many paths to addiction. Including work.

 

[Dancing David]

I was also careful to say that in studying the effect of SSRI's on "suicidal ideation" that it's hard to disentangle the initial depression/anxiety from the later effect of the drug. Prozac didn't make these people depressed to begin with.

there are issues with younger people and the SSRIs. As well as the usual issues with the ADs and suicide in general. (Another thread sometime).

Actually, my main personal concern with Prozac was impotence and a weird "high" that made me feel estranged from myself. Not suicide.
If I had been "compliant", the doctor would have told me that the "high" was going to go away.

Maybe not. Some side effects get worse and don't go away. The effect of a specific SSRI varies from person to person. For some the paradoxical anxiety and hypomanis resolve. For others they don't.

But I'm not sure if I could take feeling that "hyper" for that long. So I stopped.

I bet, hyperkinesis is no fun, especialy if it is akethesia or anxiety.

My problem was not depression but smoking marijuana, which basically acts like a sedative.

Yeah , regular use of MJ can lead to really high blood levels of the active ingredients in your body. basicaly you reach a point after six weeks where you carry around the amount you usualy smoke over a three day period. So sy you smoke one joint (ten puffs) a day and so after a while you have the equivalent of theity puffs floating around your body. Many people don't feel the MJ hangover. But many people will feel lethargic and depressed.It does mean there is very little physical withdrawl from MJ, you detox over six weeks.

So the combination of withdrawing from marijuana and going on a stimulant drug, plus the difficulties I was having in my life at the time was a "triple whammy": I was jumping out of my skin.

The problem: Doctors don't deal with people like me very often, so I had to learn to translate their advice into something I could use.

I can't be any more frank than that!

caleb

 

[Professor Yaffle]

There was a study that linked MDMA with a risk of developing Parkinson's. However it had to be retracted when it was discovered that the researchers had accidentally given methamphetamine instead of MDMA.

i do recall some research suggesting that MDMA might be a promising treatment for dyskinesias in parkinson's though. Not sure if anything came of it though as it was a few years back.

 

[calebprime]

yeah, I mentioned what I think was the same 8-up back toward the top of the thread.

there are about 900 reasons for not doing meth--(except possibly the therapeutic kind--Desoxyn--for ADD or narcolepsy) I recall Jeff Corey having an opinion on this subject.

 

[Jeff Corey]

yeah, I mentioned what I think was the same 8-up back toward the top of the thread.

there are about 900 reasons for not doing meth--(except possibly the therapeutic kind--Desoxyn--for ADD or narcolepsy) I recall Jeff Corey having an opinion on this subject.

I don't recall having expressed one, but I might be having trouble with my whatchamacallit memory . But I will. I have a lot of reservations about using any amphetamine or methamphetamine derivative - ritalin, desoxyn, etc. -for ADHD, because of the vast differences in application of the criteria for diagnosis. Or misdiagnosis. As for narcolepsy, I don't know. I'm not a medical researcher and don't even play one in commercials.
As for recreational purposes, you can keep it. Well away from me, thank you very much.

 

[knot]

Sounds like bees and dreamers.

This sounds so intriguing. Too bad I'm too old to rave. I'm sure there are no street corner dealers.

As the material came on I felt that I was being enveloped, and my attention had to be directed to it. I became quite fearful, and my face felt cold and ashen. I felt that I wanted to go back, but I knew there was no turning back. Then the fear started to leave me, and I could try taking little baby steps, like taking first steps after being reborn. The woodpile is so beautiful, about all the joy and beauty that I can stand. I am afraid to turn around and face the mountains, for fear they will overpower me. But I did look, and I am astounded. Everyone must get to experience a profound state like this. I feel totally peaceful. I have lived all my life to get here, and I feel I have come home. I am complete.

http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal109.shtml

 

[Senor_Pointy]

I don't recall having expressed one, but I might be having trouble with my whatchamacallit memory . But I will. I have a lot of reservations about using any amphetamine or methamphetamine derivative - ritalin, desoxyn, etc. -for ADHD, because of the vast differences in application of the criteria for diagnosis. Or misdiagnosis. As for narcolepsy, I don't know. I'm not a medical researcher and don't even play one in commercials.
As for recreational purposes, you can keep it. Well away from me, thank you very much.

<Nitpick> Ritalin is methylphenidate, not methamphetamine, still a stimulant, but not to my knowledge a derivative.</Nitpick>

 

[knot]

There was a study that linked MDMA with a risk of developing Parkinson's. However it had to be retracted when it was discovered that the researchers had accidentally given methamphetamine instead of MDMA.

i do recall some research suggesting that MDMA might be a promising treatment for dyskinesias in parkinson's though. Not sure if anything came of it though as it was a few years back.

In August, researchers at Duke University in North Carolina found that amphetamines, including Ecstasy, reversed the effects of Parkinson's disease in mice, raising the possibility of exploring related treatments for humans. http://www.jcrows.com/shuglin.html

 

[Jeff Corey]

Did anyone notice there was a splif on this forum?

 

[Jeff Corey]

<Nitpick> Ritalin is methylphenidate, not methamphetamine, still a stimulant, but not to my knowledge a derivative.</Nitpick>

Chemically and behaviorally similar. Thanks for the nit. :}