cannabisnews.com: Barry McCaffrey: Risky Ecstasy 





Barry McCaffrey: Risky Ecstasy 
Posted by FoM on August 04, 2000 at 07:52:31 PT
By Barry McCaffrey
Source: Nando Times
The club drug ecstasy is growing in popularity. The scientific name of this substance is MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine). The drug is synthetic, meaning it isn't found in nature. Ecstasy has the properties of amphetamines along with psychedelic effects that make users feel peaceful. Different recipes are used for ecstasy, all of which can produce serious harm. 
Ecstasy is sometimes called "Adam," "X," "X-TC," "Stacy," "Clarity," "Essence," "Lover's Speed," "Eve," or "e." It is usually taken orally in tablet, capsule, or powder form, but it also may be smoked, snorted, or injected. Ecstasy costs $25 to $40 per pill. Sometimes, users combine MDMA with LSD, marijuana, or other "club drugs" like GHB, PCP, or ketamine (an animal tranquilizer dubbed "special K") to counteract jitteriness. The drug may remain in the body up to 24 hours, although effects usually last three to six hours. MDMA generally reduces inhibitions and creates a sense of euphoria, but it also can evoke anxiety and paranoia. Heavier doses generate depression, irrationality and psychosis. Side effects include hyperthermia, vomiting, blurred vision, chills, faintness, sweating, tremors, loss of control over body movements, insomnia, convulsions, muscle tension, rapid eye movement and teeth clenching. Individuals with heart problems, high blood pressure or epilepsy have increased risk of adverse reactions. Ecstasy destroys serotonin-producing neurons and reduces serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in controlling mood, sleep, pain, sexual activity, and violent behavior. Unfortunately, little is known about long-term consequences of sustained use. One study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet and supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., examined serotonin receptors to determine whether prolonged, regular use of ecstasy can produce irreversible damage to neurons. Some of today's heavy users may be burdened with chronic depression later in life. A study at Johns Hopkins, conducted on non-human primates, confirmed that MDMA causes long-lasting damage to areas of the brain critical for thought and memory. "I am very worried about ecstasy," said Jan Walburg, director of the Jellinek Clinic in the Netherlands. "We must be wary of a drug that has the potential of causing long-term brain damage, and this one does. With our tolerant attitudes, we just didn't want to see the danger here until ecstasy had spread everywhere like a virus." NIDA director Alan Leshner explains: "At the very least, people who take MDMA - even just a few times - are risking long-term, perhaps permanent problems with learning and memory." A British study demonstrated that use during pregnancy can cause birth defects. The body quickly builds up tolerance to MDMA, so the drug is said to have a "honeymoon high" - after which users take more to recapture the initial sensation. Between 1997 and 1998, emergency room mentions of MDMA nearly doubled. In 1999, 8 percent of twelfth graders used MDMA at least once - up 38 percent from the previous year. Use escalated in the 1990s among college students and young adults, particularly those who participate in "raves" - all-night dance parties held in fields or abandoned warehouses. Raves provide open spaces for dancing amid psychedelic lights, video, smoke or fire. At such clubs, kids have died from overheating due to MDMA, which increases heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. Polydrug abuse is common. Lethal combinations include ecstasy with heroin or cocaine. (Many raves don't serve drinks since clientele are frequently underage. Alcohol diminishes the effect of MDMA.) Raves typically cost $20 per ticket, draw 6,000 to 25,000 people, and bring organizers $100,000 per night. Attendees may take ecstasy - called the "hug-drug" - in order to dance all night and "feel close" to friends. Raves have become way-stations for large purchases of ecstasy that are transported to college campuses, suburban high schools and rural areas of the country. Most MDMA in America comes from the Netherlands (or Luxembourg and Belgium). Dutch police estimate the average lab there produces 80,000 tablets per day at less than a guilder per pill, or about 50 U.S. cents. The tablets are the size of Advil and stamped with logos like Playboy bunnies, lightning bolts, or signs of the Zodiac. U.S. Customs seized 3.5 million ecstasy tablets in FY1999, more than four times the amount in 1998. Much MDMA is bought by youthful American tourists financing summer vacations by smuggling home a few hundred tablets. Some 150 Dutch "Smart Shops," which feature drug paraphernalia, help foreigners sneak ecstasy home by selling containers for Faberge shaving gel, deodorant sprays, Campbell's soup, or Heineken beer with secret compartments for drugs. Organized crime increasingly is becoming involved with MDMA. Ernst Buning, formerly with the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service, argues: "There is no simple solution to the drug problem. No one nation - not the U.S., not England - has the answer." Together, we must warn young people about the threat ecstasy poses to their health and well-being. Barry McCaffrey is director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Do you have some feedback for the Nando Times Staff? http://www.nando.com/links/feedback.htmlPublished: August 4, 2000Copyright © 2000 Nando MediaCopyright © 2000 Scripps Howard News ServiceCannabisNews Search - Ecstasyhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=ecstasyCannabisNews McCaffrey Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/McCaffrey.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by observer on August 04, 2000 at 09:58:43 PT
The Hiding Place
containers for Faberge shaving gel, deodorant sprays,Campbell's soup, or Heineken beer with secret compartments for drugs.Oh my! Must be something New! (Forgetting that morphine was smuggled in toy dolls during the Civil War.)The deadly narcotic is thus easily and quickly prepared for the market. The sale of marijuana is even more difficult to detect and halt than the traffic in drugs such as opium, morphine and heroin. They are hidden in fake jewelry cases, in the heels of shoes, women's shoes especially, because the drugs can be secreted in false heels. Hollow shaving brushes are another means, books with false centers are often used; watchcases are convenient hiding places. The value of drugs thus seized is enormous. Recently a huge supply of heroin was taken. It was concealed in an apparently harmless [shipment] of 35 barrels of olive oil. The deadly drug was burned in the incinerator of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.[voice rising, with emphasis]And more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs, is the menace of marihuana! (Reefer Madness, 1936)http://crrh.org/hemptv/misc_reefer.html 
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