Ecstasy

Ecstasy is Methylene Dioxymethamphetamine, often abbreviated as MDMA. This drug is a member of the same family of drugs that include amphetamine and LSD. I once believed that ecstasy was a mixture of methamphetamine and LSD, but as I researched, I found out that it has its own chemical structure. Ecstasy is not a mixture of other drugs; it is something all its own.

Ecstasy alone makes people biased towards ecstasy without even doing the research necessary to judge it. There are some 500,000 regular users of the drug Ecstasy in the United Kingdom alone. (lec.org/DrugSearch/Documents.Ecstasy.html, p.1) It can't be all that bad, can it?

Before ecstasy was called MDMA, it was known as MDA. MDA was first made in Germany in 1898, and was used as an appetite suppressant. It was also tested in 1941 as a relief for Parkinson's disease, but it was dropped because one trial subject felt rigidity of the muscles. It was also dropped as an appetite suppressant at about the same time because some "strange side effects were noted". (lec.org/DrugSearch/Documents/Ecstasy.html p.1) It isn't clear what those effects were. MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, was synthesized in 1914, and was patented by the German company Merck. MDMA gained popularity in 1972 as a legal alternative to MDA. MDMA was used in marriage counseling as a way