Ecstasy: The Mdma Story

Bruce Eisner writes a highly engaging introduction to the drug MDMA, or 'Ecstacy'. I found the history of it's therapuetic use and wanton scheduling at the hands of a zealously anti-scientific DEA to be a fascinating but sad story. Even Francis Young, the Administrative Law Judge presiding the hearing which made MDMA illegal, recommended the drug be placed in Schedule III which means it has accepted medical use and a low potential for abse. The DEA overuled and placed MDMA in Schedule I which means it has no acceptable medical use and a high potential for abuse. So as things stand a person can buy a dubious Ecstacy pill cut with meth off the black market with great ease, but it is extremely difficult for medical or psychiatric professionals to use it in a safe and controlled environment. However, for the first time in 20 years the FDA has permitted a study by John Halpern of the Harvard School of Medicine to study MDMA's use to in helping anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Currently there are also two other studies using the drug in Isreal and Switzerland for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. For more information on current medical and scientific work with MDMA check out www.maps.org, the website for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. I was very pleased at how Mr. Eisner explained and contextualized the MDMA experience and it's significance to the field of medicine and to ordinary people. He also goes in depth describing the pharmocology and chemical family of MDMA which includes MDA and distant relative mescaline. Is Bruce Eisner overly pro-'drug'? He certainly has an agenda, but the question is: does he make an adequte case for it? I believe he makes a strong case for MDMA and much of his excitement is well founded in the advent of such and anxiety reducing empathogenic drug. However, he does gloss over the possiblity of negative reactions to the substance, which today may be more likely with pills substituting MDMA with with slightly more hallucinogenic MDA, or adding dissasociatives such as Ketamine or DXM. Eisner also glosses over the negative reactions that can happen when comming down to normal consciousness, which can range from a happy spaced out feeling to cynicism and even intense depression in some. What goes up must come down. With the first edition written in the late 1980's has been almost 20 years of mostly scattered government funded research into MDMA since it's publication. Since little in this book adressess the serious question of nuerotoxicity it is a good idea to supplement with more up to date material. And yet since The MDMA Story's publication nobody has ever demonstrated that the drug is nuerotoxic in infrequent recreational or therapuetic doses in humans. The two biggest government studies touted by the government at the hands of their favorite million dollar grantee, Dr. George Ricaurte, both turned out to be a sham. The first 1998 study claiming a 80% loss in seratonin funct

I originally bought this book in 1990. I found it very scientific in it's process and only biased in the sense of attempting to dispell the drug hysteria that overwhelms oh so many people who cannot think for themselves. I was very proud of this book and all it offered, incuding making intellegent and educated decisions when I've chosen to ingest chemicals (drugs or otherwise), until the mid-90's research which seemed to negate almost all that Eisner offered. However, now (see New York times 3/10/04) it seems that "findings about mdma and its effect on the brain's seratonin levels" were inaccurate, published with an anti-drug agenda, and not accepted by many in this field of research. Seems like what I learned from this book so many years ago is as accurate as I initially thought and the writer and researchers are far ahead of the game in a much more non-biased sense than most of us. Not only have I learned a great deal of comprehensible scientific information on MDMA from this book, but also was able to realize how moronic the drug hysteria can be.

I've wanted to know alot more about MDMA for a while now and this or these book's tell you alot about peoples story's and the after math about this designer drug. I'm glad that people care enough and want to share their story's. I thought that all the reviews I read about the books where well wrote. *Thanks for caring*