SCIENTISTS REJECT ECSTASY CLAIMS

Research which claims to prove Ecstasy damages the brain is flawed
and misleading, says New Scientist magazine.

In its issue published yesterday, the magazine says scans showing
dark blotches in the brains of Ecstasy users have played a central
role in public information campaigns and contributed greatly to
belief in the dangers of the drug since 1998.

Last year, the brain scans - supposedly showing damaged brain cells -
featured in an official report that led to longer prison sentences
for Ecstasy offenders in the United States.

But independent scientists quoted by New Scientist say the brain
scans used for the original study, published in The Lancet, were so
imprecise that the results are highly suspect. Similar limitations
applied to later research.

The studies apparently showed that Ecstasy destroys nerve cells
involved in the production and transportation of serotonin, a vital
brain chemical involved in memory, sleep, sex, appetite and,
primarily, mood.

They used glowing radioactive tagging to highlight these nerve cells
and found the brains of Ecstasy users shone less brightly than
non-users.

But the magazine says the way brains reacted to the scan varied
enormously, regardless of Ecstasy use.

Some drug-free brains glowed 40 times brighter than others and some
Ecstasy brains were 10 times brighter or more than non-users' brains.

It says the experiments' raw data has been obscured until now by the
way the researchers analysed and presented their results, which have
been criticised by other scientists.

"There are no holes in the brains of Ecstasy users," said Stephen
Kish, a neuropathologist at the Center for Addiction and Health in
Toronto.

"And if anyone wants a straightforward answer to whether Ecstasy
causes any brain damage, it's impossible to get one from these
papers."

Marc Laruelle, a Columbia University expert on brain scanning probes,
agreed: "All the papers have very significant scientific limitations
that make me uneasy."

New Scientist said the British and US Governments should stop using
the studies to defend crackdowns on the drug. "Our inquiry does not
prove Ecstasy is harmless, but it does raise serious questions about
the quality of the evidence being used to inform drugs policies."

The researchers, George Ricaurte and Una McCann, of Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Maryland, have defended their work.