FALSE DRUG INFORMATION HARMS KIDS

With little fanfare, highly touted researchers from Johns Hopkins University
recently made a stunning announcement. Data from their experiments with the
now infamous drug Ecstasy, published a year ago in Science, turned out to be
fatally flawed.

It seems the vials had been mislabeled and the drug administered to -- and
that killed 20 percent of -- the study's laboratory monkeys and baboons was
not Ecstasy but a completely different substance.

As a research scientist, having conducted the first federally funded
sociological study of Ecstasy users, I am happy about the recent news that
one dose of Ecstasy does not, as the widely publicized Science article had
claimed, cause irreversible brain damage leading to Parkinson's disease.

What bothers me is the turn of events that enabled our government to
consistently use faulty research to shape bad drug policy.

Ecstasy's story began nearly 30 years ago, when it was first used legally as
an adjunct to psychotherapy. Psychiatrists were impressed with its ability
to help couples communicate, to enable trauma victims to heal and to soothe
chronically ill patients facing death. Ecstasy crossed over into
recreational circles in the early '80s and shortly after became illegal. Its
use remained relatively quiet until the early-'90s, when it became
associated with underground dance parties known as raves.

Ecstasy became popular with growing numbers of young people, and at its peak
in 2000, nearly 12 percent of high school seniors admitted to using it at
least once. As problems, largely associated with look-a-like pills,
overheating and dehydration, were reported, the frenzied print and
electronic media ran 1,000 fear-producing stories.

At this point the Johns Hopkins team had released a study showing massive
changes in brain chemistry resulting from the use of Ecstasy. Though now
considered methodologically flawed and never replicated, the "brain damage"
claim resulted in panic.

The federal government couldn't move fast enough, quickly enacting
anti-Ecstasy legislation and promoting its $54 million educational campaign
to alert young people and their parents to Ecstasy's dangers.

While states enacted laws targeting users, federal legislation was initially
stalled but subsequently pushed through as a tag-on to the 2003 Amber Alert
bill.

The RAVE (Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy) act held event
promoters liable for their patrons' drug use. Since the presence of medical
staff and other safety measures at dances or other gatherings constituted
awareness that drugs might be used there, sponsors faced an impossible
dilemma. They could eliminate "harm reduction" measures such as pill testing
and chill-out rooms and risk patrons' health, or maintain them and risk
their own arrest and prosecution.

As an educator, the credibility of the Ecstasy educational campaign worried
me from its inception.

Drawing from the Johns Hopkins "serotonin" research (now refuted by a
recently published, much larger and better controlled study), Web sites and
television spots carried frightening "this is your brain" images showing a
normal brain alongside an obviously damaged Ecstasy user's brain. Although
those images turned out to be phony, the National Institute on Drug Abuse
director loudly proclaimed to worried parents and politicians that the
government finally had the science to show young people that Ecstasy could
have dire consequences.

So much for science, and so much for convincing young people that the
government is telling the truth. Indeed, the recent Science retraction is
just another nail in the coffin of credibility when it comes to what adults
tell young people about drugs. Although those "this is your brain ... " ads
(along with the drug-use-equals-terrorism spots) have now been pulled, as my
25-year-old daughter, a graduate of the DARE program, remarked when she
heard the recent news about Ecstasy, "Now I'm convinced that any information
about drugs coming out of the government is automatically suspect."

The problem, of course, is much bigger than this one piece of research, and
is bigger than Ecstasy. It provides just one example of the way in which
science is manipulated to promote partisan public policy. That's what the
ranking member of the House Committee on Government Reform, Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-Calif., learned when he began to investigate the administration's
use of scientific information. Regarding more than 20 issues, including
substance abuse, his shocking report concludes, "The Bush administration has
manipulated, distorted, or interfered with science on health, environmental,
and other key issues" (www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/).

As the mother of a teenager and a young adult, my main concern, like that of
most parents, is the safety of my children. It would help if, along with the
retraction of the faulty Ecstasy research, the policies that came in its
wake -- the RAVE act and the "this is your brain" education campaign -- were
retracted as well. Indeed, the National Institute on Drug Abuse Web site has
now pulled some of its information on Ecstasy and says it is being revised.

If young Americans are ever to believe what our government tells them about
drugs and other policy issues, we must be sure that our messages are based
on sound science rather than political ideology. Only then will young people
have the kind of trusted information they need to make sound health
decisions.