ECSTASY LINKED TO SERIOUS BRAIN DAMAGE

If you party hearty with ecstasy, be prepared to pay a price with your
health -- even if it's only a one-night blowout.

A new medical study says popping the popular party drug tablets two, three
or more times within hours of each other may cause more brain damage than
previously thought.

The study warns that users of the illegal drug could be putting themselves
at "serious" risk of developing problems, either as young adults or later
in life, that look like the tremors, balance problems and slowness of
motion associated with Parkinson's disease.

The study, published in the latest edition of Science magazine, was
conducted by a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine in Baltimore, Md.

The study puts to rest any notion party-goers might have they can safely
consume multiple doses of ecstasy, also known as MDMA, during one night,
says one of its authors.

Dr. George Ricaurte said it shows the drug, when administered in multiple
doses to squirrel monkeys and baboons, destroys nerve endings of the
dopamine nerve cells in the brain.

Sufficient depletion of those cells leads to motor abnormalities.

"These findings should be a red flag or a yellow flag of caution to anyone
who is contemplating using MDMA, or perhaps is currently using MDMA," said
Ricaurte, a neurologist at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Centre.

"Certainly from a health standpoint, there is a clear and serious risk that
the drug poses to human health."

Ricaurte said previous studies have shown that levels of dopamine cells
decline with advancing age.

The new data suggests that repeated ecstasy use on top of age-related
attrition heightens the risk of developing what is known as parkinsonism, a
condition that looks like Parkinson's disease, but isn't.

"The concern is that by damaging dopamine nerve cells in the brain, ecstasy
use may be in a sense eating into a normal reserve of dopamine," he said.

Ecstasy, known officially as methylenedioxymethamphetamine, is a synthetic
chemical with stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. It has become a drug
of choice for raves, or all-night music and dance parties.

Among other things, it has been linked to severe dehydration and
life-threatening heatstroke among users. There have been about two dozen
deaths in Canada since 1998 linked to ecstasy use, including one in Red
Deer last month. A weekend ecstasy binge for a group of Red Deer friends
ended with the overdose death of one man and hospitalization of two others.

Nevertheless, Canadian law enforcement agencies report trafficking and
ecstasy use has risen dramatically in recent years with the popularity of
the rave movement.

The Johns Hopkins team investigated the effects on animals of an ecstasy
regime such as the increasingly popular one used by humans where they
consume multiple doses during one night of partying.

Earlier studies in animals suggested ecstasy killed only certain nerve
cells in the brain called serotoninergic neurons. Those cells are
implicated in regulating mood, appetite, sleep and other behaviour. By
administering multiple doses to the squirrel monkey and baboons, Ricaurte's
team showed the drug also caused the death of depominergic neurons, which
help control movements and the ability to feel pleasure and pain.