This week's edition of "60 Minutes II" is a perfect example of why most young
> people tune out educational messages about drugs and why the media needs to
> do a better job in covering this area.
> The hysteria began with the promo which called MDMA (ecstasy) "the hottest
> trend amongst young people and possibly the riskiest." A user was quoted,
> calling it "the best feeling you ever had." The sensationalism only increased
> from there.
> Correspondent Vicki Mabrey went on to claim that MDMA is the "drug that
> worries law enforcement most" and that it is the "fastest growing and one of
> the most dangerous." An undercover police officer appeared, his face hidden,
> saying "Ecstasy is no different from crack, from heroin, from any other drug."
> Anyone with any knowledge of drug use would have tuned out in disgust right
> there. While MDMA is certainly not as harmless as many first believed, there
> is no evidence that it is as dangerous as cocaine or heroin. For one, it is far
> less addictive - the drug doesn't cause physical dependence, daily use is rare and
> the overwhelming majority of users stop without treatment as the drug becomes
> less effective over time.

No one kills or mugs people for ecstasy either. In fact, it is known for its calming, peaceful effects. Unlike a lot of the recent coverage of Ecstasy, "60 Minutes II" accurately
> reported that there have been MDMA-related deaths. However, they were not
> put in any context. The fact that 40 MDMA-related deaths have been reported
> in Florida over the last 15 years was mentioned - but no estimates of how many
> people had used the drug during that time were provided.
> Europe's experience with the drug was only included to point out that most
> American MDMA comes from Amsterdam, "the drug capitol of Europe," and
> to link this status to the liberal Dutch drug laws. No mention was made of the
> fact that U.S. use rates are higher than Amsterdam's for most drugs.
> "60 Minutes II" also didn't bother to note that despite massive use in the UK
> for the last decade (it has been estimated by police authorities that 500,000 Brits
> take the drug each weekend), there have only been 70 documented deaths.
> Though the exact number of users is unknown, it's pretty clear that the odds of
> death per use are below the 1 in a million range. And while use has increased
> in England, the death rate has declined as users have taken measures to reduce
> risk, according to Dr. John Henry, one of the U.K.'s leading experts on
> MDMA and former head of the Poison Control Unit for the National Health
> Service.
> Any deaths are tragic, of course, and users must be warned about risks - but
> warnings won't be heeded if they don't jibe with people's experiences. The
> report was particularly dishonest in the way it dealt with this problem. When
> the only user interviewed cited the 1 in a million death rate, he was covertly
> ridiculed by Mabry - as the next segment focused on the MDMA-related death
> of his best friend. The correspondent didn't mention that this particular user
> had probably been booked because he had a friend who died: a very cheap way to
> punch up the idea of the drug's harmfulness.
> Then, the show went on to discuss MDMA and brain damage. It quoted a
> professor, Wendell Wilkie, who has written a book about drugs for college
> students, saying that "MDMA is one of the few drugs that geniunely do cause
> brain damage."
> This is true. Cocaine, heroin and marijuana cause brain changes but only
> through natural regulatory processes - not by damaging nerve cells as MDMA
> and amphetamines do. While research has found that the changes linked to
> cocaine, heroin and alcohol can be associated with lasting drug craving and
> repeated relapses to use, no one really knows what the effect of the damage
> done by MDMA is. It is certainly not the type of craving and compulsive
> behavior seen with the 'hard' drugs. All that is known is that in humans and
> animals, MDMA kills the ends of serotonin neurons and seems to reduce the
> level of that substance in the brain.
> Mabry's narration claimed that "serotonin causes mood," (a "fact" that would
> shock most neuroscientists because the direction and nature of the link between
> serotonin and mood is far from established) and that "lack of serotonin causes
> depression" (again, actually a correlation, not a known cause). Wilkie added,
> "In 10-15 years, I'm afraid we'll have a generation of depressed people."
> There is real reason to worry about MDMA because the reduction of serotonin
> seems to be long-lasting, and because similar reductions in this chemical have
> been found in people who attempted or completed suicide. However, if MDMA
> use were to cause massive depression among regular users, Europe would in all
> likelihood have already been hit by such an epidemic, since use there has been
> common for 15 years.
> It is certainly conceivable that the effects of damage won't show up until
> people get older and start losing neurons to the aging process - but it is also
> possible that those who are likely to have trouble with MDMA-related effects
> don't take it repeatedly because they find the crash afterwards very troubling.
> There are numerous case reports of people with MDMA-related anxiety
> disorders and depression, but these have yet to show the quality of an epidemic
> either here or abroad.
> It is particularly troubling that "60 Minutes II" didn't include comments about
> the problem from the world's leading researchers on MDMA and the brain: Dr.
> Una McCann and Dr. George Ricaurte, a married couple who are both
> professors at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
> The segment ended with a look at a harm reduction group called DanceSafe,
> which educates clubbers about ways of reducing the odds of overdose and
> which tests MDMA tablets to be sure they are what they claim to be. The tips
> it gives for protection were glossed over by the reporter as "drink water,
> don't drink too much water," which couldn't possibly help viewers learn about what
> exactly to do. The last words were given to the drug agent, who said, "Do I
> want someone to test the drug my daughter is taking or do I want them to take
> away the tablets and call me?" and to the user who said, "I'll never take that
> sh-- again."
> What could have been a real opportunity to explore the potential dangers and
> the scientific controversies over what this drug does, how it causes harm, how
> to reduce harm and who is most at risk was lost. Nevertheless, "60 Minutes II"
> will probably get advertising credit from the Drug Czar's office for producing
> a perfect anti-drug program.