DEA LETS DOCTOR DO STUDY OF ILLEGAL DRUG ECSTASY

Washington -- Capping a 17-year effort by a small but committed group
of activists, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed
to let a South Carolina physician treat 12 trauma victims with the
illegal street drug ecstasy in what will be the first U.S.-approved
study of the recreational drug's therapeutic potential.

The DEA's move marks a historic turn for a drug that has long been
both venerated and vilified.

Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is popular in alternative-care circles
for its reputed capacity to engender feelings of love, trust and
compassion. The government classifies it with LSD and heroin as a drug
with no known medical use and high potential for abuse.

While the study's approval is by no means a federal endorsement of
uncontrolled use, it will give ecstasy's proponents their first
legitimate opportunity to prove the drug can offer some medical
benefits. As a result of the DEA action, sometime in the next few
weeks the study's first participant - - still to be selected -- will
check in for an overnight stay at an outpatient counseling center in
the Charleston, S.C., area. (Investigators have asked that the
location not be precisely identified). He or she will take 125
milligrams of 99.87 percent pure 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine --
probably the highest quality MDMA on Earth -- synthesized by a Purdue
University chemist.

Michael Mithoefer, the Charleston psychiatrist who will lead the
research, emphasized that ecstasy is by no means a benign drug.
Indeed, he said, on occasion it has proved deadly at all-night dance
parties, or raves, where it is often consumed.

The goal is to help people with debilitating post-traumatic stress
disorder face the pain at the core of their illness, he said, and
learn to work with it.