ECSTASY NOT DANGEROUS, SAY SCIENTISTS

Three leading psychologists have provoked an outcry by claiming that the
dance drug ecstasy may not be dangerous and that some of its ill-effects
may be imaginary.

The drug has been blamed for causing deaths and permanent brain damage, but
the psychologists are strongly critical of animal and human studies into
its effects, claiming that they are misleading and overestimate the harm
ecstasy - scientifically known as MDMA - can cause.

Other scientists insisted that those who took ecstasy were undoubtedly
risking their health and their life.

Two of the scientists challenging the established view are British and the
third is American. Dr Jon Cole is a reader in addictive behaviour and Harry
Sumnall is a postdoctoral researcher, both at Liverpool University.
Professor Charles Grob is director of the division of child and adolescent
psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre in California.

Writing in the magazine the Psychologist, published by the British
Psychological Society, they claim that many of the studies since 1995 have
been flawed. They also accuse researchers of bias.

Ecstasy is said to affect cells in the brain which produce serotonin, the
chemical known to influence mood. But the changes observed involved the
degeneration of nerve fibres, which can be regrown, and not the cell bodies
themselves, the psychologists say.

They accuse other scientists of minimising the impact of data suggesting
that ecstasy exposure had no long-term effects. Although numerous tests
were run on volunteers, only positive results were reported in detail, they
say. "This suggests that hypotheses concerning the long-term effects of
ecstasy are not being uniformly substantiated and lends support to the idea
that ecstasy is not causing long-term effects associated with the loss of
serotonin," write the authors.

The article is critical of the way studies involving young users have been
conducted. They point out that many psychological problems start in
adolescence anyway, ecstasy users invariably took other drugs as well, and
some of the symptoms reported mirrored those caused by simply staying awake
all night and dancing.

Most of the young people in the studies were volunteers from universities
which raised questions about how representative they were of the
population, the article says.

Most studies have failed to pinpoint ecstasy as the cause of problems, they
say, and the animal studies were flawed and inconclusive.

They suggested that the long-term effects of the drug might be
"iatrogenic", which is defined by the New Webster's dictionary as "caused
by the mannerisms or treatment of a physician, an imaginary illness of the
patient brought about by the physician".

Paul Betts, whose daughter, Leah, died after taking the drug in 1995,
called the article "despicable".

Three other ecstasy experts writing in the Psychologist dismissed the
notion that symptoms of long-term ecstasy use were all in the mind.

Dr Rodney Croft, a research fellow at the Swinburne University of
Technology in Hawthorn, Australia, said: "There is strong evidence that
ecstasy does cause impairment... although conclusions drawn from such
evidence cannot be infallible, I believe the strength of this evidence
makes 'danger' the most reasonable message for the researchers to be
broadcasting."

About two million ecstasy tablets are believed to be taken by clubbers in
the UK every weekend. Deaths linked to the drug have risen in the past
decade. Between 1993 and 1997, there were 72. In 2000, there were 27,
although 19 had other drugs in their system.

The exact cause of death cannot always be established, but where it has
been, it was often dehydration.