"Teenagers Forget Streisand because the Only Girl is Cooler than Dynamite" The Blanks

4) How MDMA (Ecstasy) works

 MDMA - Methylene-dioxy-methamphetamine aka Ecstasy

Its kind of like LSD, but without hallucination, 1-6mg will cause euphoria and overdose can cause hallucinations, it can be very strong and have effects that last as long as 24 hours. There are high numbers of overdoses which often lead to acute toxic reaction, convulsions and death.

Ecstasy was about in 1914 with minimal use, but as time went on usage increased until 1985 where reports of 30,000 doses are taken every month in Texas USA (Stock, 1986).

However now about 50,000 people in Briton use it evey weekend! and 15% of all 16-24 year olds have at least tried it.

      Drug usage in Scotland (Health Education Population Survey 1998)

 Looking at the totals you can see Ecstasy is still an uncommon drug, especially compared to cannabis.

An increase of Ecstasy use was because ecstacy was legal in USA before 1985, Ecstasy is safer and milder than DOM (STI, Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine), a synthetic amphetamine, and some psychiatrists started suggesting Ecstasy as an alternative to psychotherapy (Grob et al., 1992) because it effects the social and emotion feelings (enactogenic. Pentney, 2001).

and most importantly it was seen as very cool and became iconic within the 'rave' club scene.

 

RAVE DOG!!

SOME CREEPY PEOPLE!

Physical effects

• Muscles tension
• Appetite suppression
• Insomnia
• Trismus - inability to properly open the mouth
• Bruxism - gnashing of the teeth

Toxic reactions

• Hyperthermia
• Tachycardia
• Dilated pupils
• Convulsions
• Kidney failure

However USA's hospital admissions only had 20 MDMA cases (1986).

Psychological effects

• Intense euphoria
• Emotional warmth
• Increased communication
• Less aggression
• Hallucination (uncommon for low doses)

• Paranoia, anxiety and panic were found by Pallanti & Mazzi, (1992) with suggestions of suicidal ideas.

Neurological actions

• Increase in release of 5HT (serotonin)
• Depletes 5HT in terminal buttons
• Hallucinogenic effects may be due to action on 5HT 2a
• Effects dopamine and noreadrenaline
• Has stimulant effect (like amphetamine) 

Is it addictive?

(not really)

• Well animals self adminiter MDMA sometimes (Lamb & Griffiths, 1987).
• May be because of the DA (dopamine)

    -  Drug interactions

• MDMA used when 5HT anti-depressants (e.g. Prozac) can cause death (Lane & Baldwin, 1997)
• 'Serotonin syndrome' (when the body has too much serotonin)

Does ecstasy leave any long-term effects?

• Studies on rats have suggested that many high doses of MDMA causes a degeneration of 5HT neurons, fo which there is no reversal after 2 weeks
• Low doses have been found to do the same in primates and other species (Kosten & Price, 1992)
• Ectasy can cause the loss of fine axon endings from the dorsal raphe nucleus terminating in neocortex and forebrain regions (Molliver et al., 1990).

 

Are the effects irriversible? 

• No one fully knows yet.... sounds promising...
• But the destroyed 5HT neurons are irreversible, oh well (Molliver et al, 1990.
• The non-human primates are more vulnerable than rats (Scanzello et al., 1993)
• Ecstasy users have shown lower levels of 5HT IAA (Ricaurte et al., 1990)

Ecstasy effects the 5HT levels... so 5HT effects what behaviours?

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Sleep
• Impulsivity

• Long-term users may eventually have any or all of these (also possibly non).

Next Post

5) Some researh

Something fun for your trouble

Some of you may know me and Dave Canham saw Ross Noble in Chester as he was touring on his bike. Well for those of you who don't know him here's a clip of one of his well know jokes. (btw he does all his stand up unplanned)