ECSTASY SHOWN TO DULL THE BRAIN'S ABILITY TO LEARN

THE ecstasy drug may be turning thousands of young people into sluggish
dimwits - and the effects could be permanent, according to research.

Scientists found that taking the drug harms the mechanism in the brain
responsible for learning and thinking quickly.

More worryingly, former users who had not taken ecstasy for at least six
months were equally affected, implying that the damage is long-term or
irreversible.

Michelle Wareing, a psychologist who led the study, said: "We are talking
about a brain mechanism that's involved in learning new tasks.

Ecstasy users, therefore, may not pick up things so quickly," she said.
"They'll be a bit slow on the uptake.

"As soon as there's a bit of pressure, that's when they are going to have
problems. So it could affect performance at work, or in exams if you are a
student."

Ms Wareing and colleagues at the centre for studies in the social sciences
at Edge Hill College of Higher Education, Ormskirk, Lancashire, recruited
30 young men and women aged 18 to 25 and put them through two tests
designed to test their working memory and information processing ability.

Most of those with experience of ecstasy had taken the drug once or twice a
week.

One test involved speaking aloud a randomly chosen consonant letter every
time a bleep was heard. Vowels, alphabetical and repeated sequences were
not allowed. Pressure was applied by increasing the frequency of the bleeps
from four to two seconds and then to one.

Both current and previous ecstasy users found the task difficult,
performing significantly worse than non-users. For two previous users, the
experience was so unpleasant that they were not asked to do the test at the
one-second rate.

Another of the scientists, Dr Philip Murphy, said: "The poor performance on
these tasks of former ecstasy users is potentially worrying, because it
implies the possibility of long-term effects which may not be reversible."

The scientists took account of other drugs that the young people were
taking or had taken, as well as their mood. Both ecstasy groups were more
anxious than the non-users.