Did anyone watch Jennings' report on Ecstasy last night? It really showed

what a waste the war on drugs has been. I can't remember if he mentioned it, but do any other countries allow the use of Ecstasy in psychotherapy? I wonder if there will be a response from the DEA.

Go Peter! Damn those Canadians!

I then turned off the television very quickly and fled the room, images of Larry King sucking on a Day-Glo pacifier burnt into my brain.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Too funny! :D

Actually, I know someone who was a part of that early 90'S rave scene, and she now has a masters degree. Brain damage? I seriously doubt it.

i did a report on alcohol v. MDMA. guess which one was scarier? from the gov'ts own resources?

ps: hint - it ain't the 'designer club drug'

They talked with other prominent scientists outside the US who pretty much debunked the NIDA (Nat. Inst. of Drug Addiction) study. Basically, no long term ill effects have been noted--scientifically or casually.

But, (and I thought it was pretty responsible reporting) they then got into the whole issue of purity and consistency of the drug given it is being trafficked in illegal circles. That's where the danger comes in...no one knows what's in that little pill.

There used to be a group called DanceSafe that would set up a table at raves and do a quick check for MDMA purity. Not sure if they are still around. Their presence kind of indicated that it was a "Drug scene" in the eyes of the Feds and the clubs got targeted for raids." Again, sad.

are pretty fucked up...they forget how to be happy...

no desire to take it. I do remember her telling me quite a few years ago that she was concerned about how many times she had X'd over the years. She seemed to turn out fine. She was also an exceptionally bright person to begin with. She graduated in the top 1% of our class.

No problems being happy that I know of. Of course there are plenty of people around who've never touched the stuff and they have to take Paxil/Zoloft/Gleemonex every day or they'll kill themselves, guess we better outlaw sobriety huh?

but I know too many folks that are just totally lost...

Although, the people I know might have crossed the line between "casual user" and "abuse" a bit too often...

Granted there was a little depression when I first stopped, but that because my brain just needed a couple weeks to get the seratonin back to normal, which it did. I'll glad trade those couple weeks for the benefits I received. MDMA completely changed my ability to interact with people and feel good about myself. Before I was very sullen, and withdrawn, and couldn't bring myself to talk to people, and that was while trying at least 7 different legal anti-depressants/anti-anxiety drugs. Which I would have to take for the rest of my life mind you, some of them were physically addictive and were VERY hard to break away from. Nothing like that with Ecstacy, I just decided that it was time to move away from that stuff and I stopped, there was no difficulty in it whatsoever.

Plus there have been people using it for over 30 years, and none of them have shown any ill effects. I'll trust my own eyes before I EVER believe anything the government has to say about a drug.

If it wasn't for them damn drugs she'd have a POSTDOCTORATE already and she would have found the cure for AIDS... no, scratch that, AIDS is God's punishment for sinners... the cure for CANCER, yeah, that's it. So stop saying that!

:kick:

"that you know of"...

gosh, i wouldnt know of anybody in the psychiatric professions who would use these illicit drugs for therapeutic purposes.

/sarcasm.

There are some very good arguments to legalize most drugs, but XTC is the devil. Back when I lived in Germany I actually saw a person collapse in a club from a heart attack and dehydration infront of me and die...so yeah that shit just needs to stop happening.

Lets also not forget what it does to your GABA sensors in your brain, it overloads your pleasure sensors and they die off from the overload, with long term use (i.e. 2 years) people stop being able to feel pleasure causing depression that is not manageable with psycological or drugs treatment.

If you go to your closest Med School they will be glad to show you pictures of electronic flow in a healthy brain and one of a 2 year xtc user... it isn't pretty

regarded as accurate by scientific peers.

That's why a New York patholigist looked into it and found that out of over 10,000,000 doses of E taken in a year in NYC there were a whopping TWO deaths. Aspirin kills more people than E, but hey it's a free country, just don't expect too many people to take your propaganda seriously.

:hippie: :hippie: :hippie:

The guy that started it in Texas still looked happy didn't he? I think he "saw" God. :-)

This is the shill employed to "scientifically" show how bad marijuana is for you. All real doctors and scientists know his "research" is a total joke and totally without merit. He keeps getting federal NIH and DEA grants to continue demonizing pot. He is one of the biggest reasons it has been so difficult to shift the perception of pot as a "gateway" drug, etc. I'm sure a lot of the prescription drugs, such as Cylert and Ritalin cause more damage that ecstasy. I say legalize every damn drug out there. We're adults - who is big brther to lock us up for growing a plant or popping a pill? Such BS.

In the first place. The DEA just said, there's a lot of people that take this and we don't like it so we're going to make it illegal. They never even bothered to see what it does until 12 years later. And then of course they bought off some 'scientist' who more or less made up his study. There's NOTHING the government says that's true. The Drug War is just an excuse to lock up more and more people.

back in the thirties.

THE US GOVERNMENT IS A LYING FRAUD AND HAS BEEN FOR MANY MANY YEARS. LEARN HOW THEY MADE POT ILLEGAL:

EXCERPTS FROM
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States
by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School


<long historical snip>

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937

<snip>

When we asked at the Library of Congress for a copy of the (Congressional) hearings (on the prohibition of Marijuana), to the shock of the Library of Congress, none could be found. We went "What?" It took them four months to finally honor our request because -- are you ready for this? -- the hearings were so brief that the volume had slid down inside the side shelf of the bookcase and was so thin it had slid right down to the bottom inside the bookshelf. That's how brief they were. Are you ready for this? They had to break the bookshelf open because it had slid down inside.

<long, interesting snip>

So, over the objection of the American Medical Association, the bill passed out of committee and on to the floor of Congress. Now, some of you may think that the debate on the floor of Congress was more extensive on the marijuana prohibition. It wasn't. It lasted one minute and thirty-two seconds by my count and, as such, I will give it to you verbatim.

The entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition was as follows -- and, by the way, if you had grown up in Washington, DC as I had you would appreciate this date. Are you ready? The bill was brought on to the floor of the House of Representatives -- there never was any Senate debate on it not one word -- 5:45 Friday afternoon, August 20. Now, in pre-air-conditioning Washington, who was on the floor of the House? Who was on the floor of the House? Not very many people.

Speaker Sam Rayburn called for the bill to be passed on "tellers". Does everyone know "tellers"? Did you know that for the vast bulk of legislation in this country, there is not a recorded vote. It is simply, more people walk past this point than walk past that point and it passes -- it's called "tellers". They were getting ready to pass this thing on tellers without discussion and without a recorded vote when one of the few Republicans left in Congress, a guy from upstate New York, stood up and asked two questions, which constituted the entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition.

"Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"

To which Speaker Rayburn replied, "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."

Undaunted, the guy from Upstate New York asked a second question, which was as important to the Republicans as it was unimportant to the Democrats. "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"

In one of the most remarkable things I have ever found in any research, a guy who was on the committee, and who later went on to become a Supreme Court Justice, stood up and -- do you remember? The AMA guy was named William C. Woodward -- a member of the committee who had supported the bill leaped to his feet and he said, "Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent." It wasn't true, but it was good enough for the Republicans. They sat down and the bill passed on tellers, without a recorded vote.

In the Senate there never was any debate or a recorded vote, and the bill went to President Roosevelt's desk and he signed it and we had the national marijuana prohibition.

<another big snip>

...if you want to read the whole thing, you can find it on line at: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm

I wonder when Jennings will do an expose on that.

Of course the really crazy thing is the for MDMA the DEA didn't even have to pull out all the crazy propaganda bullshit that they did for weed. They just simply made it illegal by fiat. Gotta love that democracy huh?

That was a lot of interesting reading. But I love the very last paragraph.

"Let me conclude, and again this is my prediction -- I will tell you I don't think it is subject to opinion. Just look at it. Just take a look at what has happened now and what will happen. I will tell you how inexorable it is. If we get together here in the year 2005, I will bet you that it is as likely as not that the possession of marijuana may not be criminal in this state. But the manufacture, sale, and possession of tobacco will be, and why? Because we love this idea of prohibitions, we can't live without them. They are our very favorite thing because we know how to solve difficult, social, economic, and medical problems -- a new criminal law with harsher penalties in every category for everybody."

I love that paragraph and the preceeding which explains why. "US", the movers and shakers, the college graduates do not smoke tobacco in high numbers. "THEM" who smoke tobacco in high numbers are, in the words of your author, "the moved and the shook", the poor, the criminals and the minorities.

Unfortunately, I agree with his conclusion. Just as the minority Republican party used drug prohibition to gain majority status, it appears the minority Democratic party is intent on riding tobacco prohibition. I wish my party would just say no to prohibition.

go to http://www.erowid.org

No propaganda, just facts about the effects and risks of any mind altering substance known to man.

Jennings said "It simply just makes you dance your ass off!"




This was my friend Richard Jennings by the way.

Some people danced, others would sit around and have deep conversations, while others would just zone out in front and cool displays of lights. Depending on the mood I was in I'd dance or just go around meeting new people and creating bonds with people I never would have talked to in a million years if I had been sober.

I've often said, if all the world could trip on E at the same time, war and violence would be a thing of the past, it erases hate from your mind.

stay far, far away from E. E does funny things with your seratonin. Many depressed people already have seratonin imbalances, and E (though it feels good : )can further complicate the situation. Trust me.

All of them said it worked wonders. It definitley helped me. The only problem is don't abuse it. But that's going to happen with any drug, Xanax for instance, it's prescribed, but I've seen it fuck up way more people. In fact I don't think I've ever met a single person who got strung out on E. Plenty who took it a lot, and sometimes they did dumb shit (not like that doesn't happen with beer) but all of them stopped and haven't had a problem since about a month afterwards. All non-government non-propaganda studies show that seratonin loss is negligible (<5%) and that its production returns to normal after 2-8 weeks.

you're right about the potential to abuse any drug.
Unfortunately I have seen people strung out on E. It can be addictive so it's great if people can stop but we have to consider that some people cannot (again, as with any drug). I stopped myself because I liked it too damn much and I didn't want to end up taking it all the time.
I'm just saying, E is not part of my traditional course of treatment(including SSRIs) and I felt it would hinder, not help my treatment. That's why I mentioned "serious" depression. Those with serious depression may be even more vulnerable to E abuse because instead of feeling like crap all the time they want to feel good. I'm not willing to say E has no therapeutic value. I thought it's use in treating post-traumatic stress disorder was very interesting.

E's not like any other prescription drug in that it should just be prescribed and then you take it every day. It requires a professional psychologist to interact with the user and help guide them through their feelings. The reason why I think it has value is because it allows the person to sort through the underlying causes of their depression that generally aren't chemical in nature but because they have issues they need to work out. That was the case for me. Taking endless regimens of scripts without any counselling didn't do anything for me because I simply needed to talk honestly about my feelings and MDMA helped me do that.

As for people getting stung out, there could be a variety of causes for that. I think one of the most likely is that it is often cut with other substances (heroin for instance) that ARE physically addictive. Granted E can be psycholigically addictive because it feels good, and people like to feel good so they keep doing it. However, those addictions tend to not last long because eventually you're tolerance of it builds and it won't feel the way it used to and you realize, "Why am I still doing this?" That and the $25-50 dollar a pill price tag will end it fairly quick.

I do realize that there are some problems with E that need to be addresses. It's just that criminalizing it doesn't stop those problems it actually makes them worse, the same as with all drugs.