ECSTASY USE LINKED TO POORER MEMORY

TESTS have shown that users of the rave drug ecstasy have poorer memories
than non-users.

The tests, devised by researchers at the University of Wales in Swansea,
suggest a 25 per cent reduction in performance. The results were disclosed
by a BBC Scotland documentary which also cited new research in Edinburgh
and America. These two studies, it claimed, give added weight to evidence
of long-term damage by the drug. They suggest that ecstasy use could
increase the risk of having in middle age conditions normally seen only in
the elderly, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Part of the research involved volunteers remembering a news story
immediately after hearing it and again after 20 minutes. Ecstasy users
recalled six ideas, other volunteers managed eight.

Dr Mike Morgan, of the university, said: "The implications of this finding
are that everybody who has taken more than 20 tablets of ecstasy will have
a similar memory problem."