MAD SCIENTISTS

Hey, we aren't saying toddlers should be sprinkling the popular party drug
ecstasy on their morning Pop-Tart. We just think we should know the real
science behind the drug if we expect young people to make healthy choices
about using it.

Ecstasy was announced as a nightmare drug after a 2002 study found that a
single dose of it could be damaging enough to lead to Parkinson's disease.
The same study declared a single dose destroyed 60 to 80 percent of certain
brain cells in test monkeys, killing 20 percent of the animals. But despite
the damning report, there was something amiss with the conclusions-namely,
the fact that thousands of ecstasy-using partygoers weren't flooding the
morgues each weekend, as the science seemed to predict.

It turns out the researchers involved screwed up-they were testing
methamphetamine, commonly known as speed, not ecstasy. The studies were
recently retracted, and the lead scientist is under fire for shaky, biased
research.

To make matters worse, the discredited findings were the driving force
behind passage last year of the draconian federal Illicit Drug
Anti-Proliferation Act. This piece of legislation allows club owners to be
prosecuted if club goers are caught using drugs on the property but has
also been used to shut down drug-law-reform rallies. A major Bush
administration decision, based on faulty evidence-sound familiar?

Now for some good news: The DEA has given the go-ahead to a study that will
examine the use of ecstasy on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hopefully
this will lead to more objective, scientific analysis of this increasingly
prevalent drug and to the government finding realistic ways of controlling
it. Now wouldn't that be a trip?