"60 MINUTES" OF ECSTASY (NOT)

The MDMA media circus misses another opportunity to educate the public

This week's edition of "60 Minutes II" is a perfect example of why
most young people tune out educational messages about drugs and why
the media needs to do a better job in covering this area.

The hysteria began with the promo which called MDMA (ecstasy) "the
hottest trend amongst young people and possibly the riskiest." A user
was quoted, calling it "the best feeling you ever had." The
sensationalism only increased from there.

Correspondent Vicki Mabrey went on to claim that MDMA is the "drug
that worries law enforcement most" and that it is the "fastest growing
and one of the most dangerous." An undercover police officer appeared,
his face hidden, saying "Ecstasy is no different from crack, from
heroin, from any other drug."

Anyone with any knowledge of drug use would have tuned out in disgust
right there.

While MDMA is certainly not as harmless as many first believed, there
is no evidence that it is as dangerous as cocaine or heroin.

For one, it is far less addictive - the drug doesn't cause physical
dependence, daily use is rare and the overwhelming majority of users
stop without treatment as the drug becomes less effective over time.
No one kills or mugs people for ecstasy either.

In fact, it is known for its calming, peaceful effects.

Unlike a lot of the recent coverage of Ecstasy, "60 Minutes II"
accurately reported that there have been MDMA-related deaths.

However, they were not put in any context.

The fact that 40 MDMA-related deaths have been reported in Florida
over the last 15 years was mentioned - but no estimates of how many
people had used the drug during that time were provided.

Europe's experience with the drug was only included to point out that
most American MDMA comes from Amsterdam, "the drug capitol of Europe,"
and to link this status to the liberal Dutch drug laws. No mention was
made of the fact that U.S. use rates are higher than Amsterdam's for
most drugs.

"60 Minutes II" also didn't bother to note that despite massive use in
the UK for the last decade (it has been estimated by police
authorities that 500,000 Brits take the drug each weekend), there have
only been 70 documented deaths.

Though the exact number of users is unknown, it's pretty clear that
the odds of death per use are below the 1 in a million range.

And while use has increased in England, the death rate has declined as
users have taken measures to reduce risk, according to Dr. John Henry,
one of the U.K.'s leading experts on MDMA and former head of the
Poison Control Unit for the National Health Service.

Any deaths are tragic, of course, and users must be warned about risks
- - but warnings won't be heeded if they don't jibe with people's
experiences. The report was particularly dishonest in the way it
dealt with this problem.

When the only user interviewed cited the 1 in a million death rate, he
was covertly ridiculed by Mabry - as the next segment focused on the
MDMA-related death of his best friend.

The correspondent didn't mention that this particular user had
probably been booked because he had a friend who died: a very cheap
way to punch up the idea of the drug's harmfulness.

Then, the show went on to discuss MDMA and brain damage. It quoted a
professor, Wendell Wilkie, who has written a book about drugs for
college students, saying that "MDMA is one of the few drugs that
geniunely do cause brain damage."

This is true. Cocaine, heroin and marijuana cause brain changes but
only through natural regulatory processes - not by damaging nerve
cells as MDMA and amphetamines do. While research has found that the
changes linked to cocaine, heroin and alcohol can be associated with
lasting drug craving and repeated relapses to use, no one really knows
what the effect of the damage done by MDMA is. It is certainly not the
type of craving and compulsive behavior seen with the 'hard' drugs.

All that is known is that in humans and animals, MDMA kills the ends
of serotonin neurons and seems to reduce the level of that substance
in the brain.

Mabry's narration claimed that "serotonin causes mood," (a "fact" that
would shock most neuroscientists because the direction and nature of
the link between serotonin and mood is far from established) and that
"lack of serotonin causes depression" (again, actually a correlation,
not a known cause). Wilkie added, "In 10-15 years, I'm afraid we'll
have a generation of depressed people."

There is real reason to worry about MDMA because the reduction of
serotonin seems to be long-lasting, and because similar reductions in
this chemical have been found in people who attempted or completed
suicide.

However, if MDMA use were to cause massive depression among regular
users, Europe would in all likelihood have already been hit by such an
epidemic, since use there has been common for 15 years.

It is certainly conceivable that the effects of damage won't show up
until people get older and start losing neurons to the aging process -
but it is also possible that those who are likely to have trouble
with MDMA-related effects don't take it repeatedly because they find
the crash afterwards very troubling.

There are numerous case reports of people with MDMA-related anxiety
disorders and depression, but these have yet to show the quality of an
epidemic either here or abroad.

It is particularly troubling that "60 Minutes II" didn't include
comments about the problem from the world's leading researchers on
MDMA and the brain: Dr. Una McCann and Dr. George Ricaurte, a married
couple who are both professors at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The segment ended with a look at a harm reduction group called
DanceSafe, which educates clubbers about ways of reducing the odds of
overdose and which tests MDMA tablets to be sure they are what they
claim to be. The tips it gives for protection were glossed over by the
reporter as "drink water, don't drink too much water," which couldn't
possibly help viewers learn about what exactly to do. The last words
were given to the drug agent, who said, "Do I want someone to test the
drug my daughter is taking or do I want them to take away the tablets
and call me?" and to the user who said, "I'll never take that sh--
again."

What could have been a real opportunity to explore the potential
dangers and the scientific controversies over what this drug does, how
it causes harm, how to reduce harm and who is most at risk was lost.
Nevertheless, "60 Minutes II" will probably get advertising credit
from the Drug Czar's office for producing a perfect anti-drug program.

To read more about media coverage of Ecstasy, see Szalavitz's December
article "News You Can Abuse."