 Ecstasy
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History of
Ecstasy
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| Early
ecstasy
MDMA was patented
in 1913 (patent #274.350) by the German chemical company Merck supposedly to be
sold as a diet pill (the patent does not mention any intended use). The company
decided against marketing the drug and had nothing more to do with it. Another
urban legend has the US army testing MDMA in 1953 as a possible truth serum,
but there is no real evidence supporting this. |
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The man responsible
for the modern research of MDMA is Alexander Shulgin, who after graduating from
the University of California at Berkeley with a Ph.D. in biochemistry landed a
job as a research chemist with Dow Chemicals. Among his many achievements for
Dow Chemicals was one profitable insecticide and several controversial patents
for what were to become popular street drugs. Dow was happy with the
insecticide but Shulgin's other projects created a parting of the way between
the biochemist and the chemical company. Alexander Shulgin is also the first
reported human to use MDMA.
Shulgin continued his legal
research of new compounds after leaving Dow, specializing in the
phenethylamines family of drugs. MDMA is but one of 179 psychoactive drugs
which he described in detail, but it is the one which he felt came closest to
fulfilling his ambition of finding the perfect therapeutic drug.
Since MDMA
had already been patented in 1913, it held no profit potential for a drug
company, as a drug cannot be patented twice and before marketing a new drug, a
company has to show that the potential side effects are justified by the drug's
benefits as a medicine, and this involves long and expensive trials. The only
way of recouping that expense is by obtaining exclusive rights to sell the drug
through holding its patent. Only a few experimental therapists researched and
tested the drug (between 1977 to 1985) for use during psychotherapy sessions.
In
1985, MDMA/Ecstasy received massive media attention when a group of people sued
the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to try to prevent them from outlawing the
drug by placing it on Schedule 1. The US Congress had passed a new law allowing
the DEA to put an emergency ban on any drug that it thought might be a danger
to the public. On July 1st 1985, this right was used for the first time to ban
MDMA.
A hearing was held to decide what
permanent measures should be taken against the drug. One side argued that MDMA
caused brain damage in rats, the other side claimed this might not be true for
humans and that there was proof of the beneficial use of MDMA as a drug
treatment in psychotherapy. The presiding judge, after weighing the evidence,
recommended that MDMA be placed on Schedule 3, which would have allowed it to
be manufactured, used on prescription and subject to further research. But the
DEA decided to place MDMA permanently on Schedule 1.
Trial research into the effects of
MDMA on human volunteers resumed in 1993 with the approval of the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA),.the first psychoactive drug approved for human testing by
the FDA.
Trends in ecstasy
use
The synthetic drug "ecstasy,"
which has been used increasingly among college students and young adults in
recent years, also is being used at relatively high levels by America's 8th,
10th, and 12th graders, according to NIDA's 1996 Monitoring the Future study.
Nearly 5 percent of 10th and 12th graders and about 2 percent of 8th graders
said they had used MDMA in the past year, the study reported. .
Ecstasy, or
MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is structurally similar to
methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline. Previous Monitoring the Future
studies asked 12th graders about the use of MDMA by their friends and about the
drug's availability. The 1996 study was the first to question 8th, 10th, and
12th graders about their own use of the drug. The new data on MDMA use among
these students will provide baseline information that will be helpful in
tracking trends in MDMA use from a younger age.
MDMA use has risen sharply among
college students and young adults during the 1990s. The Monitoring The Future
Study included follow-up data on drug use among a representative sample of
college students and young adults who had previously taken part in the study
when they were in high school. College students and young adults in this sample
have been surveyed every 2 years since the Monitoring the Future study began in
1976.
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 Program Information
The Narconon program is
an effective solution to ecstasy addiction. The program handles the biochemical
side of ecstasy addiction where others do not.
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