MDMA chemical structureEcstasy commonly appears in a tablet form, usually imprinted with a monogram.The title screen to Peter Jennings - Ecstasy Rising
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Ecstasy (drug)

MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), most commonly known today by the street name ecstasy, is a synthetic entactogen of the phenethylamine family whose primary effect is to stimulate the secretion of and inhibit the re-uptake of large amounts of serotonin as well as dopamine and noradrenaline in the brain, causing a general sense of openness, empathy, energy, euphoria, and well-being. more...

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Ecstasy (drug)
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Tactile sensations are enhanced for some users, making general physical contact with others more pleasurable; but, contrary to popular mythology it generally does not have aphrodisiac effects. Its ability to facilitate self-examination with reduced fear has proven useful in some therapeutic settings, leading to its 2001 approval by the United States FDA for testing in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Acute dehydration is a risk among users who are highly physically active and forget to drink water, as the drug may mask one's normal sense of exhaustion and thirst. Also the opposite, "water intoxication" resulting in acute hyponatremia has been reported. By far the biggest danger comes from the fact that other, more dangerous chemicals (such as PMA, or methamphetamine) are either added to ecstasy tablets, or more often simply sold as ecstasy. Long-term effects in humans are largely unknown and the subject of much controversy —particularly with regard to the risks of severe long-term depression as a result of a reduction in the natural production of serotonin.

MDMA is also known by many other street names, including Adam, Beans, Biscuits, Candy, E, Eccies, Googs, Jack and Jills, MaDMAn, Mollies, Pills, Rolls, Scoobies, Smarties, Tabs, Thizz, Vitamin E, Vitamin X, X, XTC, Yaotou (in East Asia), and Yokes.

History

A patent for MDMA was originally filed on Christmas eve 1912 by the German pharmaceutical company Merck, and granted two years later (to the day). At the time, MDMA was not known to be a drug in its own right; rather, it was patented as an intermediate chemical used in the synthesis of a styptic (a drug intended to control bleeding from wounds.) Over half a century would pass before the first known ingestion of MDMA by humans.

Contrary to many rumours, the drug was never used as an appetite suppressant or as a stimulant for armed forces during wartime. (This was in fact methamphetamine.) The U.S. Army did, however, do lethal dose studies of it and several other compounds in the mid-1950's. It was given the name EA-1475, with the EA standing for Edgewood Arsenal. The results of these studies were not declassified until 1969. MDMA was first brought to public attention through Dr. Alexander Shulgin in the 1960s who recommended it for use in certain therapy sessions, naming the drug 'window' (he discovered it while searching for compounds that might have a similar psychoactive effect as other compounds contained in nutmeg). It was widely used therapeutically by US psychotherapists because of its empathogenic effects until its criminalization in the late 1980s. The drug was hailed as a miracle by therapists and counselors who claimed couples could have six months worth of progress in one use of the drug, and soldiers returning from the Vietnam war could overcome their PTSD sometimes more effectively than talk or group therapy. A small number of therapists continue to use it in their practices today. (See below for 2001 FDA approval and DEA licensing for use in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.)

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Ecstasy usage increasing among teenagers - Drug Abuse - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included
From USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), 4/1/02

Use of the drug ecstasy continued to rise among American teenagers in 2001, following sharp increases among young adults and adolescents in recent years, but the rate of growth finally is beginning to slow. That result comes from the national survey in the Monitoring the Future series, conducted annually for the past 27 years by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, which included about 44,000 students in 424 public and private secondary schools.

Ecstasy, also known as MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is a stimulant drug, often taken for its hallucinogenic effects. It first became popular in the "rave" and all-night party scene, and its use spread and began to increase sharply in 1999. The proportions of eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders who reported having ever taken ecstasy in 2001 were five, eight, and 12%, respectively.

"In the past, we have seen a turnaround in use occur for other drugs as a result of more young people seeing them as dangerous," study director Lloyd D. Johnson observes. "We have been saying for some time that the use of this drug will not turn around until young people begin to see its use as risky, and this year, for the first time, they are finally beginning to see it as more dangerous." The proportion of 12th-graders (the only ones asked about their perceptions of risk for this drug) saying that there is a great risk associated with experimenting with ecstasy jumped from 38% in 2000 to 46% in 2001. "I believe this is happening as a result of accumulating evidence about ecstasy's adverse consequences, vigorous efforts by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to disseminate the facts about possible consequences, and extensive media coverage of the drug and its effects."

At the same time, however, there is a continuing sharp increase in the availability of ecstasy, with the proportion of 12th-graders saying that they could get it "fairly" to "very" easily rising from 51% in 2000 to 62% in 2001. "This reflects an extremely rapid spread in availability," he points out, "which is due in part to the fact that this drug is still reaching new communities." In 1998, 53% of the schools in the 12th-grade national sample had any survey respondent who had used ecstasy, but this proportion rose to 66% by 2000, and reached 72% by 2001. "Thus, even if fewer students are willing to use ecstasy in the schools where it has been present, that decline very likely has been more than offset by the continuing rapid diffusion of the drug to additional areas," Johnson says.

The use of ecstasy has reached many demographic subgroups, but it is much-less favored among African-American students than among whites and Hispanics. Among 12th-graders, only two percent of African-American students report using ecstasy in the prior year, compared to 10% of both white and Hispanic students.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

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