h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is ecstasy evil or sublime, in your opinion? Have you ever tried it? If not, why not? If yes, why and what are your views on it? I am writing a paper on the future of recreational drug-taking and would love some people to tell me what they think!

Cheers...

Darling.

My mind is my own and I'll not have any substances messing it about, sublime or not - that's my point of view. I need to be able to have a say in who I am and what I do, and I reckon taking drugs isn't a good way to make this easier.

26199

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.

I never intend to go near the stuff - or any drug, including fags.
Drugs simply give the impression of wellbeing, and mess with your brain. I don't want that happening to me.
I'd rather enjoy myself because what I'm doing is making me happy, and not rely on chemicals to lie to me.
Addiction is rarely a good thing.

This forum raises an interesting but more general point.

In the 19th century there were no prohibited drugs, so if you wanted to experiment on yourself, that was your problem.
Restrictions on availability of drugs have been increasing ever since.
I met someone the other week who pointed out to me that amphetamines were not restricted in the UK until the 1960's apparently before that you could buy them over the counter in chemists.

It seems to me that all prohibiting drugs does is to move them into the black market with the result that heaps of money is spent on enforcement and users are never sure of the purity of the product they are buying.
A large number of drug related deaths and in the papers seem to be due to comtaninated supplies.

It seems to me that governments would be better off treating them in the same way as tobacco and alcohol. Making them available from chemists but taxing them to discourage usage.

What do other researchers think?

You're absolutely spot-on.

A number of European countries treat drug-users in a completely different way from Britain.

Here, they are demonised and forced into an alternative lifestyle, centring on their need to feed their habit. This results in increased crime levels - especially burglary, robbery and shop-lifting - to raise the money that gets them their drug of choice. Feelings of inadequacy, alienation and rejection reinforce the barriers between users and 'normal' society. Effectively, drug users find it increasingly difficult to identify reasons to 'kick the habit'.

In other countries, drug users are treated on a basis of 'good management', enabling most to continue in employment and to build a level of motivation that makes re-habilitation attractive. This might mean the state supplying drugs in clinics that are open in time for the addict to get their shop before work. In the Netherlands, drugs are routinely tested on behalf of users to reduce contamination.

Some while ago, Channel 4 (I think) ran a fascinating series that enabled a 'panel' of the public to look at alternative ways of handling drug use in society. The consensus of those taking part was that criminalisation was just about the least effective and most damaging of the options available to society.

Before Keith Hellewell was appointed 'drug czar', he was all in favour of more imaginative approaches to the problem. Since then, we have seen similar recommendations from a government-appointed committee rejected out-of-hand by both politicians and - as soon as he realised it was advisable - the drug czar, himself.

Okay, I'm going on a bit here. Sorry, it's one of my 'hot buttons' because I work with people who are victims of our crappy system.

This post has been removed.

I don't use ecstacy, though I know a couple of people who do and one who did and has stopped. When I compare ecastacy to other recreational drugs, I see some good things and some bad things.

The drug doesn't seem to be physically addictive. It doesn't cause users to become violent (rather the opposite in fact). There are no flashbacks involved as with some hallucinogens. There are very few deaths related to ecstasy. In general, the short term effects are better for ecstasy than with most other recreational drugs.

To understand the bad side, you must understand how ecstacy works. Normally, your brain produces and releases seratonin at a relatively constant rate. When you are sad, you brain is releasing a little less seratonin over the course of the day. When you are happy, it is releasing a little more. What ecstasy does is it forces your brain to release all the seratonin it has manufactured at one time -- in one big rush.

This causes euphoria and other pleasant symptoms for hours. But the next day (and sometimes the day after), the user will experience depressive symptions. The depression can be relieved by taking ecstasy again, and for this reason I believe ecstasy is psychologically addictive.

Early studies indicate that even infrequent users may be impairing their brain's ability to produce and release seratonin. That means longterm users may very well end up chronically depressed. We have no idea how long these effects last, but studies so far show that brain changes can last at least five years.

This helps you understand the damage to the person. You must also look at the damage to the people that person loves, and damage to society as a whole. Chronically depressed people are, of course, generally less fun to be around. They can also have difficulty holding down jobs and keeping up relationships. This is especially scary if the frequent ecstasy user is a parent whose family depends on them. So there might be long term consequences, but we don't understand yet what the severity of those consequences might be. We haven't studied them enough.

I agree that we must also look at whether it is more harmful to make ecstasy illegal or leave it legal and put addiction recovery programs in place. The huge majority of deaths related to ecstasy in the US could be prevented by educating users and testing the purity of ecstasy pills. The leading cause of deaths is related to putting other, more lethal drugs in ecstasy tablets because they are cheaper to make. If ecstasy were legal, the Food and Drug Administration could control the quality and purity of the tablets.

The second leading cause is dehydration, because users need to replenish their fluids after taking the drug -- and sometimes times they sweat away their water dancing at raves instead. If the drug were legal, people might be less afraid to pass on useful information about taking it.

Also, there is very real hope that ecstasy users seeking help could get it. There are several drugs available for perscription to help depressed people that might also help ecstasy users regain their ability to produce seratonin. We don't know, because again we haven't done the research to find out. My guess is that anti-depression medications could probably help former ecstasy users return to their jobs and take care of their children if such were any issue at all.

Putting regular ecstasy users in jail is very unlikely to help them. For one thing, drugs have become just as available in jail as they are in the rest of the country. And drug recovery programs are still rare in jail. So the person is likely to leave the system with their addiction in tact, plus they will leave with a social stigma that will make it hard for them to find a job. Since this is a pretty depressing position to be in, I can imagine the temptation to turn to ecstasy again. We must also remember that it is very expensive to put people in jail, and we are taking them away from family and friends.

Here are my conclusions. I will not take ecstasy, because I worry about the long term effects on my happiness. However, I don't think the drug should be illegal. I think we should research the potential for anti-depressive medications to serve as recovery drugs for users who are experiencing personal problems with depression.