The Empathy And The Ecstasy

You have to wonder if a drug called Empathy could be the toast of young
people, a Raver Madness segment on "60 Minutes" and a scourge to be fought
by politicians and law enforcement.

A capsule of Empathy sounds like something Bill Clinton would take to feel
others' pain, but that's the name almost given to Ecstasy.

"Have you heard the story about how it got its name?" said Marsha
Rosenbaum, the sociologist who first studied Ecstasy in the late 1980s. She
published a book called "The Pursuit of Ecstasy: The MDMA Experience."

MDMA, the official nickname for Ecstasy, is clumsy and the chemical name it
stands for is beyond pronunciation: 3,4-methylenedioxy methamphetamine.

"The drug was first used in the late '70s primarily by therapists because
it enables people to talk to each other without defenses and without fear,"
said Rosenbaum. "People reported they felt more empathetic."

Rosenbaum said therapists called the drug, which was then legal, "The
Medicine," or sometimes "Adam" in honor of the therapist most known for
using it. The drug needed a better name.

"The way the story goes," said Rosenbaum, one of the drug's distributors
said, "Well, you know, Empathy would be the proper name, but let's call it
Ecstasy. It'll sell better."

It's illegal now, but it's selling better than ever. It sure does create
empathy, as well as increased libido. It's understandable that young people
trying to overcome their defenses are attracted to the stuff.

This is how hard Ecstasy hits the empathy buttons.

A lesbian acquaintance was undergoing marriage counseling with the husband
she had left for a woman, when their therapist gave them Ecstasy during a
session. So much empathy was created between them that they got back
together, and it took weeks before my acquaintance remembered she was
really a lesbian.

I took the stuff, way back during its first wave of popularity during the
early Reagan administration. Look, I lived in Florida, and it was "Miami
Vice" time, and Ecstasy was the least of the vices available.

That sunny Sunday afternoon, my wife and I really, really got along, but
then we made the mistake of turning on the television.

Every show was terrific. I vowed to write a column about how great TV had
become. The next Sunday I watched the shows with a clear head and they all
stunk. Ecstasy is not a good drug for a professional cynic.

Funny how this "St. Joseph's Baby Acid," as professional cynic P.J.
O'Rourke once called it, was so popular in the Reagan era and once again in
the smiley-face Clinton-Gore-Bush era.

If Ecstasy had been the rage in 1968, kids might have made love, but
instead of fighting the war they would have deeply felt for Lyndon Johnson.

It's easy to make light of one's youthful (well, 35-ish in the case of
Ecstasy) drug experimentation, but Ecstasy is potentially harmful to some
kids, particularly if they drink booze with it, get dehydrated from
dancing, or get some more dangerous powder passed off as Ecstasy.

Rosenbaum is head of the San Francisco Office of the Lindesmith Center-Drug
Policy Foundation, funded by drug legalization activist George Soros. By
the way, just as Ecstasy got a new name, she would like to have a punchier
name for her foundation. She thinks Drug Policy.org sounds about right for
the largest drug policy reform foundation in the land.

She'd like to see some changes in the ways we approach kids and drugs, and
strictly for the safety of the kids. This is a temperate woman, someone
whose first studies were funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Ecstasy can definitely be abused, and not just by kids taking too much of
it, but by politicians making too much of it. There's a federal Club Drug
Initiative and wars on "club drugs" like Ecstasy being launched by federal
and local authorities all over the nation.

"My concern is that they're taking a shred of research information and just
running with it," said Rosenbaum.

"More people than ever are going to be doing time, and it won't reduce the
use of the drug," she said. "When kids read about it, they say, "Wow, this
sounds good.' "

Despite all the warm and fuzzy feelings created by Ecstasy, kids don't get
so carried away that they don't want to know more about it.

"I don't think kids are out to do themselves in," said Rosenbaum. "When
they open up, if they think you know something about Ecstasy, they pick
your brain. They want to know more."

Here's one interesting fact. The more you take Ecstasy, the less it makes
you feel ecstatic or empathetic. It's sort of a self-limiting drug.

In January, Rosenbaum held a two-hour forum on Ecstasy at the San Francisco
Medical Society, and 200 people showed up, many of them young people.
Rosenbaum was so astounded at the turnout that on Feb. 2, 2001, she's
sponsoring a longer conference called "Ecstasy, Science and Culture" to
bring scientists together with ravers.

She's also speaking on Ecstasy and the failing drug wars at the Shadow
Convention in Los Angeles. You want to convince kids not to take Ecstasy?
Don't get drug czar Barry McCaffrey on the case. Just tell the kids that
it'll make them like "Matlock."