'ECSTASY' FOR AGONY

July 21, 2001 -- Sue Stevens was severely depressed after her young
husband, Shane, succumbed to kidney cancer in 1999. She took large
doses of numbing antidepressants to get through the day.

Then, last fall, the 32-year-old Chicago woman chose a more radical
approach. She traveled to the West to see a psychologist whom she had
learned was prescribing the illegal drug "ecstasy" for a handful of
patients suffering from severe trauma.

In a single session, under the influence of ecstasy - a drug that
combines the effects of a psychedelic and an amphetamine - she said
she was finally able to come to grips with her grief.

"Somehow, I knew Shane was no longer hurting, which made it possible
for me to let go," said Stevens, who hasn't taken any antidepressants
since.

"It was like a wire that was disconnected got reattached and jump-
started the healing process. Even if this feeling was just an effect
of the drug, it's what I needed to do to move forward."

Anecdotal reports from other mental-health professionals suggest
similar results from ecstasy, said Rick Doblin, president of the
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit
group in Boston that funds psychedelic research.

"There's a whole network of 30 to 40 people around the country - some
are psychiatrists, some are psychologists - who risk their licenses
to use MDMA [the chemical name for ecstasy] with their patients," he
said.

Lester Grinspoon, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School who has studied psychedelics but is not among the
therapists prescribing ecstasy to patients, said the synthetic drug
can "greatly accelerate" the therapeutic process.

"It enhances one's capacity for insight and empathy, and melts away
the layers of defensiveness and anxiety that impede treatment," he
said. "In one session, people can get past hang-ups that take six
months of therapy to untangle."

Other doctors, however, contend that MDMA is too dangerous to justify
its use for any therapeutic purpose.

"There's no scientific evidence that MDMA is beneficial. It's all
anecdotal," said Dr. George Ricaurte, an associate professor of
neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Giving patients even one dose of ecstasy, he believes, is unethical
because of its potential to harm.

The intense, but largely unknown, scientific debate over MDMA's
possible pyschotherapeutic use has been overshadowed by the recent
storm of publicity about the health risks of the drug. The news is
filled with horror stories of kids overdosing on ecstasy at all-night
parties, of machine-gun shootouts over ecstasy deals gone bad and of
disturbing surveys that show it is the fastest-growing illegal drug
in America.

Fueling concern over ecstasy's safety has been a growing number of
studies that suggest it may alter the brain, impair memory and
concentration, dull one's intelligence, and cause chronic depression
and anxiety. That has led Alan Leshner, director of the National
Institute of Drug Abuse, to distribute thousands of postcards with
images of brain scans labeled "Plain Brain/Brain After Ecstasy."

Yet some credible researchers insist ecstasy may be a valuable
therapeutic tool when used with professional oversight. They contend
critics have exaggerated the drug's dangers, using weak science to
bolster their arguments.

"The issue has become so politicized that it's impossible to get a
fair, objective hearing," said Dr. Charles Grob, director of Child
and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance,
Calif.

Grob helped conduct government-sanctioned tests of MDMA on humans in 1995.

There is one thing, though, on which both supporters and critics of
ecstasy can agree: The recreational use of the drug is dangerous.
Some people take multiple doses of ecstasy, and the drug is often
adulterated with other substances to create a potentially toxic
mixture. And ecstasy is often taken with other illegal drugs in
crowded, overheated dance clubs, where users can become severely
dehydrated.