Ecstasy (MDMA) - Overview

Overview

Ecstasy, or MDMA, was first created in 1910 by German scientists studying amphetamines. Merck, a German pharmaceutical company, took out a patent on the chemical in 1914. Some sources say the company thought MDMA might be useful to suppress appetite. Whether it was studied for this purpose or not, it showed little usefulness and was nearly forgotten for half a century.

The drug resurfaced in the 1950s during the Cold War (1945–1991), an era that saw extreme tension between the United States and the former Soviet Union as the two competed for world dominance. Throughout the 1950s, scientists in the United States studied a number of amphetamines and hallucinogens for use in chemical warfare. MDMA, then known as EA-1475, was one of the drugs tested by the U.S. Army Office of Strategic Services (a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA). Since the army was searching for drugs that would produce psychotic or violent behavior, MDMA proved useless. Again it drifted into disuse.

The compound surfaced again in the laboratory of American chemist Dr. Alexander T. "Sasha" Shulgin (1925– ) in the 1960s. Shulgin, according to the London-based Guardian Unlimited news service, has tested and synthesized some 200 psychoactive substancesMind-altering; a psychoactive substance alters the user's mental state or changes one's behavior. during his lifetime. Reporter Dan Glaister noted: "Shulgin seems destined to be remembered for one small episode in 1965 when, tipped off by a student about an interesting but forgotten compound, he synthesised MDMA." Shulgin created his own batch of MDMA and experimented on himself and others in his inner circle of friends and colleagues who were willing to try unknown drugs. His belief, after using MDMA, was that it might have some value as a drug for mental disorders. He especially thought that MDMA might help people to "open up" about troubling events in their lives that they did not want to discuss otherwise.

In the 1960s and 1970s, MDMA was not an illegal substance, but it also was not being manufactured by any drug company. Some chemists made small batches that were used by psychiatrists,

A young drug dealer is shown counting ecstasy pills. Ecstasy use has spread beyond the party scene, finding its way into private homes, high schools, college dorms, and shopping malls. Scott Houston/Corbis.
A young drug dealer is shown counting ecstasy pills. Ecstasy use has spread beyond the party scene, finding its way into private homes, high schools, college dorms, and shopping malls. © Scott Houston/Corbis.

especially in California. At first the medical community in California was excited about the drug that seemed to heighten feelings of closeness and connectedness in patients. But as the drug drifted into recreational useUsing a drug solely to achieve a high, not to treat a medical condition., animal testing indicated that it destroyed brain cells. The doctors backed away, but the drug had found a following among college students. In those days it was commonly known as ADAM, a scrambling of MDMA.

Ecstasy's Popularity Soars

The identity of the person who first called the drug "ecstasy" has been lost to history. However, it is commonly believed that a drug pusher coined the term. Various sources note that MDMA was once called "empathy," which described the drug's effects on some users. But the name was later changed to "ecstasy" to make it sound more appealing. The word ecstasy comes from the Greek word ekstasis, meaning to be outside of oneself or outside of one's body. The name caught on as the drug became ever more popular on college campuses.

Gahlinger estimates that in 1976, private laboratories produced about 10,000 doses per month. By 1985, that number had risen to 50,000 doses per month. And then demand simply skyrocketed. Time magazine reported that in December of 1999, drug agents seized 1.2 million tablets of ecstasy in a single bust in Los Angeles. U.S. customs agents confiscated 9.3 million tablets in 2000, a small fraction of the total sold and consumed that year. In April 2005, as reported by ABC News Online, "Australian … authorities found 5 million ecstasy tablets, with a street value of more than $250 million, in a shipment of tiles." That was the biggest single bust of ecstasy on record as of that date.

Ecstasy Found at Raves:

The popularity of ecstasy coincided with a new type of all-night dance party called a "rave." Beginning in 1987 on the Spanish island of Ibiza, British vacationers staged all-night parties, complete with loud, beat-driven dance music in crowded conditions. Raves spread first to the United Kingdom and then to the United States. By the mid-1990s they were widespread, particularly in big cities. The use of "club drugs" to enhance the enjoyment of the party experience was already established in America, where certain discos catered to cocaine and amphetamine users. Ecstasy fit the rave scene better than cocaine, however. Under its influence, otherwise shy or cautious people became wild dancers, open and friendly to strangers, and able to stay awake all night.

By the time raves became established in the United States, ecstasy had already been added to the Schedule I list of controlled substances by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ecstasy's placement on the list in 1985 was under an "emergency" clause. As animal testing continued, even the psychiatrists who had used it for patient therapy began to agree that the drug was unsafe. When illegal ecstasy became the drug of choice at raves, the government's position was strengthened. Emergency room visits sparked by bad reactions to ecstasy spiked from 253 in 1994 to 5,542 in 2001, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report. In 2002, ecstasy-related ER visits dropped to 4,026. In 2000, the Christian Science Monitor reported 72 deaths related to ecstasy in the state of Florida alone.