DRUG ECSTASY COULD DAMAGE USERS' BRAINS, RESEARCH SAYS

Studies Using Monkeys, Baboons Suggest Greater Risk Of Developing Parkinsonism

Ecstasy, the club drug popular at all-night dance parties, may do serious
damage to the brain.

Research published today in the journal Science suggests that young people
who pop two or three ecstasy pills in one evening may kill a vast number of
brain cells and put themselves at risk of neurological disorders later in
life. The study, on monkeys and baboons, suggests that one night on the
drug may be enough to do the damage.

"Young adults may be increasing their risk for developing Parkinsonism, a
condition with symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease," said George
Ricaurte of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Ecstasy, a stimulant also known as MDMA, is cheap and easy to buy, and many
young people believe it is safe because there are no immediate harmful
effects. Dr. Ricaurte's research may spoil the party.

He gave squirrel monkeys three doses of the drug in a row, similar, he
says, to the amounts human recreational users take. Three weeks later he
looked at their brains, examining in particular the area where neurons
produce the chemical dopamine. Dopamine carries messages between brain
cells and helps control movement, emotional and cognitive responses and the
ability to feel pleasure. Ecstasy killed 60 to 80 per cent of the
dopamine-producing neurons in the part of the brain where they are clustered.

The researchers were surprised by the results, so they tried the experiment
in five baboons. Those also lost a significant percentage of their
dopamine-producing cells.

The drug clearly is bad for monkeys and baboons, but does that mean it will
hurt humans?

"We can't be absolutely sure that the animal data will generalize to human
beings," Dr. Ricaurte said. "But based on what we know so far, that is our
concern."

Other researchers said that too many conclusions are being drawn from
flawed research, and it is a stretch to link Parkinsonism to the drug.
Parkinsonism, which causes tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson's
disease, is known to occur with an 80-to-90-per-cent loss of dopamine.

"Dr. Ricaurte's study does not predict anything about human vulnerability
to Parkinson's as a result of using MDMA," said Juan Sanchez-Ramoz, a
neurology professor at the University of South Florida.

There is evidence that ecstasy acts differently in different species. It
destroys dopamine neurons in mice, but rats are spared any damage, said
Stephen Kish, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
and an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Kish is working on a study of Parkinsonism in ecstasy users, but said
he won't be ready to release his findings for a year. He has published data
about the brain of 26-year-old man who used ecstasy for nine years and died
with it in his system. There was no sign of damage to the man's
dopamine-producing cells.

When ecstasy first became trendy on college campuses in the 1980s, people
generally took one or two doses a month. Now it is popular on the rave
scene, and users pop three pills in an evening.

Dr. Kish's earlier work shows that ecstasy damages parts of the brain that
produce serotonin, another chemical that carries messages between neurons.
Serotonin is believed to help regulate mood and behaviour. His animal
studies have shown damage to the serotonin-producing neurons to be
long-lasting, but not as severe as the damage he found in the
dopamine-producing brain cells. It has not yet been established that the
damage is permanent.