EXPERTS REJECT CLAIMS ABOUT ECSTASY

ANTI-DRUG campaigners and medical experts here and abroad yesterday
rejected claims that ecstasy was not as dangerous as had been believed.
Three British psychologists said ecstasy did not cause long-term health
problems contrary to a vast volume of studies.

Responding, Grainne Kenny of Europe Against Drugs said: "The studies are
there and show ecstasy causes brain damage and depression and those studies
have been very carefully done."

Dr Jim Donovan of the State Forensic Science Laboratory said ecstasy
damaged the production of serotonin the chemical that gives the 'feel good'
experience.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which regulates calm and well-bring and is
also thought to influence cognition, appetite, movement and body temperature.

Animal research has indicated ecstasy damages the ability to produce
serotonin, thereby resulting in the risk of depression.

The paper by the three psychologists said the changes to serotonin caused
by ecstasy involved the degeneration of nerve fibres, which can be regrown,
and not the cell themselves.

The psychologists, Dr John Cole and Harry Sumnall in Liverpool University
and Prof Charles Grob, director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the
Harbour-UCLA Medical Centre in California, said data was being used
selectively to support findings that ecstasy caused brain damage.

Writing in The Psychologist, the magazine of the British Psychological
Society, they accused researchers of bias and of minimising date suggesting
ecstasy had no long-term damage.

They said although many studies on volunteers had been carried out, those
that showed no damage were ignored.

Many international experts dismissed the article, among them Dr Rodney
Croft of the Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria, Australia. He
said: "There is strong converging evidence that ecstasy does cause impairment.

"The strength of this evidence makes 'danger' the most reasonable message
to be broadcasting.