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Psychologists claim ecstasy may not cause long-term harm

i came across this article from DJmag.com, and thouught it might interest alot of people here so... here it is..

ECSTASY REPORT SPARKS OUTRAGE

Psychologists claim ecstasy may not cause long-term harm


Leading psychologists have caused a stir with claims that Ecstasy might not be dangerous at all.

The three psychologists - two English and one American - have claimed that findings published from studies on Ecstasy, a drug previously blamed for causing possible brain damage and a series of deaths, might be inaccurate.



Articles published by Dr John Cole, Harry Sumnall and the USA's Prof Charles Grob in the British Psychological Society magazine claimed that many of the studies carried out since 1995 have been flawed.

Those studies showed that Ecstasy effects the cells in the brain that produce serotonin, the chemical that's known to influence a person's mood. Use of Ecstasy, according to findings from those original studies, degenerates these cells.

However, this trio of psychologists said that Ecstasy use degenerates the nerve fibres, which can be re-grown, rather than the cells themselves.



The team accused scientists who carried out the studies of placing less focus on the data that suggests that exposure to Ecstasy has no long term effect and said that only the positive results of the studies were reported in detail.

In their article in the BPS they said: "This suggests that hypotheses concerning the long term effects of Ecstasy are not being uniformly substantiated and lends support to the idea that Ecstasy is not causing long term effects associated with the loss of serotonin."



While clubbers continue to take Ecstasy in large quantities - figures show that up to two million pills are consumed each weekend in the UK - the effects of these pills are still not known fully.

Deaths related to Ecstasy have risen in the past decade with the record figure of 27 E-related deaths in 2000. Of those 27 who died, 19 of them had other drugs in their systems and while the exact cause of death was not established, where it has been, the cause has been attributed to dehydration.



Since the article was published in the BPS a string of response articles have appeared in national newspapers. Paul Betts, father of Leah Betts who died after taking the drug in 1995, called the BPS article 'despicable'.

Meanwhile, there's no doubt that the views printed by Cole, Sumnall and Grob will prompt further studies into the effects of Ecstasy.

Nothing is harmfull when used with precausion!

quote:

Originally posted by jploveparade Nothing is harmfull when used with precausion!

it all depends on the dosis.. i agree!

X is good for you.... trust me!
take 1 day, to keep the doctor away!

Re: Psychologists claim ecstasy may not cause long-term harm

quote:

Originally posted by Malice However, this trio of psychologists said that Ecstasy use degenerates the nerve fibres, which can be re-grown, rather than the cells themselves.

By the way, nerve cells dont regenerate in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). When people take E where do you think the nerves are affect most, the CNS or PNS. The CNS is affected most, where nerve cells dont have myelin sheath and WILL NOT regenerate. Only cells aside from the brain and spinal cord will regrow.

Do these people have a formal proper lab report? if so i want to see it

then can someone explain to me about memory loss then!? I used to use e regularly and now I'm still feeling the effects of memory loss. I don't get depression like so many other people do but my short term memory has gotten ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancewave then can someone explain to me about memory loss then!? I used to use e regularly and now I'm still feeling the effects of memory loss. I don't get depression like so many other people do but my short term memory has gotten ridiculous.

well most ecstasy on the market isnt fully MDMA or isn't MDMA at all. There are alot of other drugs in the pills people are taking. these drugs also have a strong effect on your brain add in the mixtrue with MDMA and there is going to be an even stronger effect on your brain. this is possibly what would lead to your short term memory loss (considering this is a valid study and it is right)
I personlly don't know how valid of a study this actually is, but im willing to assume that they used pure (as pure as it can be made) MDMA. which means that their study shows that pure MDMA doesn't have long term effects on teh brain.

yeah, i agree with you on dat one... I mean, I^m living proof that it does something to you. I was never popping it on a daily basis or even weekly (more like once every 3 months) and even today, after 1 year of avoiding it, i still feeel the loss of memory effects. Poor me, my memory will never be the same again.....

i think you wanna blame XTC on your bad memory... you believe its done something to you when it really hasnt.

before i took xtc my memory was crap and it still is crap... however i still manage to study languages and keep up with everyone else who has never done drugs... and if you need memory for anything you neeed it most for japanese...


bah ive had alot more drugs then one every 3 months as well i useed to pop 3 pills a night every saturday night and have goie and alchohol on the side.. ive tried just about every drug under the sun thats available in sydney (besides heroin) and all it did to me was open my eyes to the shite that were fed...

everything in moderation is safe you just gotta have respect for you and your body and understand you limits... hell people in iran smoke scorpian blood to much and it poisons you but the right amount and your high as a kite!!!

thats my two cents anys... maybe im just magical and drugs dont harm me liket hey do others... i did lose a bit of weight but hehe

quote:

Originally posted by mongeone i think you wanna blame XTC on your bad memory... you believe its done something to you when it really hasnt.

I don't "think" i believe it's done something to my memory, I "KNOW" that it has. I haven't touched ecstasy for over a year now and even today sometimes I even forget things people say to me just like 5 minutes ago.....and this is on a regular basis for a few months at a time!! this has never ever happened to me before.

that happens to most people...

your not gonna remember everything from 5 minutes ago... whether youve used drugs or not alot of people still forget the names of people they have just met and need to be reminded of it several times...

im realistic i do believe that it can harm you but only to a certain degree and not to the extent that the government and others claim so it may have affected you but on the whole I tend to think people exaggerate the effects or tend to wnat to believe they are there to move the blame on there inability to do something to the drugs sot hat they dont have to accept the fact that they arnt the smartest people in the world.

dont get me wrong im not trying to say your bulls*hitting your self or anything... i believe what you say, i should ahve worded the sentance you quoted better. Its just i have seen many people in the rave/dance scene in sydney say all this stuff and 90% of the time its completely bull!!!

but it does astound me that qrius1 claims to have taken xtc about once everythree months and has memory loss when i took it for about 2 years straight several everyweekend and with other drugs and cant say taht i have any affects and most of my friends are the same.... it just seems a little weird to me!!

considering that I�m reasonably young, feel quite well and find the feeling of trancing a night away on good E absolutely fabulous... well what the heck with the risks. It�s not as if I�m blowing my mind with 5-E-a-night or stuff like that... I guess my smoking is worse.

And it at least frees me for a couple of hours from other worries I may have - and that�s totally worth it for me.

But luckily everyone has other standards - live and let die...

Net

there'z a massive sticky post in this room all about it.........look on their for info!!!!!!!!!!!

People really need to look at the big picture...you put foriegn chemicals in your body your meessing around with it. End of Story...where do you think all these cancers and alzhemeirs and all this horrible diseases come from. They were not around 50 - 60 years ago.

Think about taking tylenol even, its messes with your system. Evolutions is supposed to make you stronger, but we have fucked with that by trying to preserve life with chemicals, so taking a chemical that does nothing but mess around with your brain has to have effects I dont care what the studies show.

As for short term memory, 100% its messed up for me. I have not done X more that 25 times over 3 years and I can feel the effects and after 7 days in Ibiza this summer, my entire functionality was messed, body mind and spirit.

If there is anyone out there who thinks exstacy (even one pill) is not bad for you, then your looking for an asnwer in the wrong place.

quote:

Originally posted by hansolo you put foriegn chemicals in your body your meessing around with it. End of Story...where do you think all these cancers and alzhemeirs and all this horrible diseases come from. They were not around 50 - 60 years ago.

Uh, do you really think that? Sorry, but cancer, alzhemeirs, polio, heart attacks, ms, muscular distrophy, ect... have all been around for a long long time (probably around the start of man), but only in the 1900's due to the industrial revolution were we able to actually study and name these natural human killers. Hansolo, learn some history, drugs did not cause these conditions since drugs came A LOT later then them.

Point is, even if MDMA causes harm people will _still_ continue to use it! So what's the best way to minimize the harm done and avoid un-neccesary deaths from it?
Harm reduction of course.
If MDMA is used with care, you know that the pill you're swallowing contains 100% MDMA, or atleast not anything harmful, and you're not doing it more, say 4-5 times a year you probably won't die from it or suffer any serious harm from it.

Sure, it may damage your brain, but what the scientists dont know is if the effects are permanent, not enough research on MDMA has been done to say that.

My thoughts on the matter is that no-one should be able to tell me what to do with my body, and that there are more dangerous things like sky-diving, and mountain-climbing and to endulge in than taking MDMA.

quote:

Originally posted by FuzzyGreen Uh, do you really think that? Sorry, but cancer, alzhemeirs, polio, heart attacks, ms, muscular distrophy, ect... have all been around for a long long time (probably around the start of man), but only in the 1900's due to the industrial revolution were we able to actually study and name these natural human killers. Hansolo, learn some history, drugs did not cause these conditions since drugs came A LOT later then them.

There is an increase in certain diseases that were not as prevelant earlier on.

I think that you should e-mail me in 40 years from now and we will sit down at have look at the trends...I think some nice correlations will be clear to see.

han solo: none of the increases in disease can be related to drugs at all... the reason why more people have been having heart atacks and what not is becasue more and more people are eating western diets more people are smoking and there were trends to go out and sunbake and get burnt initialising the cancer process!

and very few people actually die from xtc itself... less people are allergic to xtc then alcohol. Most xtc related deaths are because the person has drunk too much water or not enough overheated and so on not becasue of the actual xtc itself if these people respected their bodies and slowed down till they understood their limits even less people would die!

another problem is the fact that most times when we take the pills theres very little xtc in it and instead theres a mix of mda mdmx speed ghb and ketamin amongst other things.. these things when mixed togeather are alot more dangerous and the percentange of people allergic to the concoction increases above that of alchohol!

a society tollerent of xtc would effectivily knock out almost all of these dangers for people who were smart enough to use safety precautions.

One reason why i feel that xtc harms people alot less than what the government and son on say is because it is not xtc that affects our emotions or anything but a natural drug pruduces by the brain called seretonin.. the xtc merely relaxes the muscles that moderate teh release of this drug and cause more to be made at a faster rate.. yes over working your body so obviously its gonna be tired and worn out and not able to function 100% for several days...

anys you live in your world ill live in mine im just glad that mine allows me to take the stuff have fun as much or as little as i want and still come out of it the same fine and dandy!!! who could ask for anything more???

quote:

Originally posted by hansolo People really need to look at the big picture...you put foriegn chemicals in your body your meessing around with it. End of Story...where do you think all these cancers and alzhemeirs and all this horrible diseases come from. They were not around 50 - 60 years ago.

Cancer has existed for thousands of years. There are confirmed cases of it as early as 200 AD, and since cancer exists in animals, it's very likely it existed far before the dawn of man. Alzheimer's, likewise, has existed far longer than you're suggesting. Our increased life spans, moreso than anything else, have contributed to the increasing prevalence of the condition.

We've wiped out a lot more serious conditions with 'chemicals' than have appeared in recent years, anyway.

quote:

Think about taking tylenol even, its messes with your system. Evolutions is supposed to make you stronger, but we have fucked with that by trying to preserve life with chemicals, so taking a chemical that does nothing but mess around with your brain has to have effects I dont care what the studies show.

Don't underestimate the body's ability to maintain equilibrium, especially over long periods of time. If our species wasn't adaptable, we wouldn't have been nearly as successful as we were.

quote:

As for short term memory, 100% its messed up for me. I have not done X more that 25 times over 3 years and I can feel the effects and after 7 days in Ibiza this summer, my entire functionality was messed, body mind and spirit.

This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. You have failed to establish causality.

quote:

If there is anyone out there who thinks exstacy (even one pill) is not bad for you, then your looking for an asnwer in the wrong place.

You've been brainwashed by a society trying to teach you that something is bad just because they don't understand it. It's not your fault, but I suggest you wake up.

Cheers,

Arbiter

Trying to tell kids drugs are bad for them, is like pissing in the wind; it doesn't work. Let them live thier lives, because they are the ones that will live with the consequences.

Im talking from the side of me that justifies not doing it. I have done it before, I know its hypocritcal of me but, as much as I do love doing it, the fact of the matter and mongone you said it yourself, is that xtc is not pure mdma its a whole bunch of crap, and that is what I am referring to, not a pure mdma pill cause I have yet to come across one of those.

And I am all for people doing there consequence free drugs, there is a lot more people out there that need to do drugs, especially X cause they can will see many things in a whole new light.

The fact of the matter is that the X revolution started heavy, and Im talking shit X, not Mdma sold at bars in New york in the 70's, began strong and hard in the 90's and 10 years of study is not enough for me with regard to long term effects. I just dont want to attirubte some problem I have 20 years down the road (g-d forbid) to the use of exstacy.

Bottom line, There is no way your convincing me and there is no way I am convincing you, especially on this board.

Just party and have fun and I got no problems with you.

quote:

Originally posted by hansolo Bottom line, There is no way your convincing me and there is no way I am convincing you, especially on this board. Just party and have fun and I got no problems with you.

Fair enough. It's a good point you make about the impurities in most of the stuff you find out there. That's why I think they ought to legalize it, because by doing so they would empower themselves to regulate it.

quote:

Originally posted by QRIUS1 yeah, i agree with you on dat one... I mean, I^m living proof that it does something to you. I was never popping it on a daily basis or even weekly (more like once every 3 months) and even today, after 1 year of avoiding it, i still feeel the loss of memory effects. Poor me, my memory will never be the same again.....

Do you drink, smoke weed, ever get less than 6 hours of sleep, use acrylics or come into contact with one of a thousand substances which can cause memory loss?

I am not arguing that it doesn't effect you, but take things in perspective. Memory loss if one of the most common problems people report to their doctors, besides physical pain... something to think about. And if you're worried, go to your doctor and ask for some tests.

Cheers,
Fats

quote:

Originally posted by hansolo There is an increase in certain diseases that were not as prevelant earlier on. I think that you should e-mail me in 40 years from now and we will sit down at have look at the trends...I think some nice correlations will be clear to see.

Now yer pissing me off...

Cancer and all these diseases are on the 'rise' for two main reasons.

1) Improvements in medical science. We now are able to diagnose diseases earlier and more accurately than even 15 years ago. As well almost everyone goes to the doctor now, but 100 years ago the 'average' person could easily go through life and never, NEVER see a doctor. Why? Because they lived in areas without them. They had shamans, and local whack-jobs who claimed to be medical professionals, but they weren't. Also, today it is routine to meticulously diagnose cause of death. Not so back in the day.

2) Pollution. If I need to explaine this, then you need to back to school.

As for memory loss... like I said, everyone has memory loss. I had it bad before I dropped for the first time. Now, well clubbing has actually improved my memory in some respects. I used to be the worst for remembering peoples names - girlfriends included. But because at a club I tend to meet 30 or 40 people a night who all want to be my best friend, and I run into a lot of them again and again, I am now able to remember peoples names weeks later, after meeting someone only once... Granted this is anecdotal evidence, but it's first hand for me.

And on a final note, my drinking has gone way, way down. I used to get wasted 3, 4 times a week. Now, I go a week or two without getting faced. I'll take sketchyness over a sever hangover anyday.

Cheers,
Fats

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