Ecstasy use is safe when consumed responsibly by adults, Canadian health officials declared this week.
Perry Kendall, British Columbia’s chief provincial health officer, said that the risks of MDMA are overblown and the drug only becomes dangerous when cut with other more dangerous drugs and substances, CBC News reported. Despite a string of ecstasy-related deaths in the region and warnings by police in British Columbia and Alberta, Kendall is advocating that MDMA be licensed and sold legally.
Stricter regulations would ensure that the drug is pure and free from chemicals that dealers sometimes use to cut it in an attempt to stretch their product and make more money, he said.
“(If) you knew what a safe dosage was, you might be able to buy ecstasy like you could buy alcohol from a government-regulated store,” Kendall was quoted in CBC News.
Kendall’s announcement comes on the heels of another debate over whether ecstasy can be helpful in solving marital problems. Researchers from Oxford University have called for more research in the area. It has also been proposed as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Medical experts widely agree that MDMA is not addictive, and more recent research suggests that its negative effects are overblown. A 2011 study sponsored by the U.S. government found that pure ecstasy does not impair cognitive function. Another Harvard University study found that pure ecstasy has a few minor side-effects, including changes in core temperature and lowered immune resistance for a few days.
“But barring that, it appears … it can be safely administered, certainly through research,” said John Halpern, the study’s lead researcher, in CBC News. Like Kendall, Halpern advocates for legalization of ecstasy and for its use as a prescription drug.
this i hog wash. it may be true that this drug isnot normally addictive but the affects of the drug is horrific to the nervous sytem and the brain. To legalize these drug is an attempt to genocide
Who told you that, your health teacher?
there are studies date back as far as 1990 when the drug really hit the scene — but on the serious anything that says "Drug" aint so wonderful for you.. but do the research
Tylenol says drug on it too man. Ecstasy, just like marijuana and lsd, has been subjected to propaganda. For example, a study done on marijuana said that marijuana caused brain damage. Now alright, I see how that could be believable, but when you look at how the study was done you see it's flaws. They strapped monkeys with gas masks and injected 5 Colombian grade joints and kept the masks on FOR 5 MINUTES. I don't know about you, but when I don't breathe for 5 minutes it's usually a huge risk. They also did a study with monkeys about ecstasy. They injected a substance they claimed as ecstasy into the monkeys and they showed signs of Parkinson's Disorder…Now once again this would be believable until you looked into it. The substance they injected was actually crystal meth…not ecstasy. Another key study done on MDMA "concluded that MDMA causes brain damage." Do you know why they concluded this? They injected monkeys with enough MDMA over the course of 4 days to equal out around 6 grams of MDMA to a human. The average does of MDMA a pill of ecstasy contains it around 100 mg…Clearly when you take 60x too much of the drug it will harm you. But none of the monkeys died (unlike in the crystal meth study) so it showed that MDMA is nonlethal even at high doses. WHO even made a study stating that cocaine is safer than tobacco and alcohol, but America took all it's funding from WHO and demanded they didn't publicize the document. The leaked document can be found here. http://neurobonkers.com/WHOleakedcocainereport.pdf Anyways, America's war on drugs is practically nothing but a bunch of propaganda that we are slowly finding to be false, or as you put it, "hog wash".
well if you think its safe, go for it (btw too much tylenol will destroy ur liver… ) #justsayin
Jstu:
Suggest you look at the academic research coming from Cambridge University, U. of Leyden (Netherlands), U. of Berne (Switzerland) about the permanent neurological damage caused by Zoloft (as one typical example of the SSRI's). Seems to begin when taken for more than six months. Having seen these problems, from personal experience, I would rather detox you from heroin than Paxil or Valium (among others). The American Psychological Association recently acknowledged that they feel that 70% of all the research they publish is biased to represent the point of view of the authors. What the article under discussion reports is entirely possible. Is it true? The answer is, statistics don't matter! What is the effect of any substance on ONE human being. I have a friend who goes into anaphylactic shock if he eats celery, a substance generally considered safe. Other substances are generally harmful, among them nicotine (a psychoactive substance as is caffeine). What are the relative dangers? Opiates and their brethren are highly addictive but routinely (far too routinely in my opinion) used medically for pain. Limit the question to the risks (physical and emotional) of psychoactive substances, what is the rationale (God forbid we allow logic to intrude on debate) behind limiting both research and use of different substances? Can we not openly explore all? As to recreational use, restricting the discussion to adults (allowing for higher risks for the young), what is the rational basis to allow the use of some substances and not others. It can't be either addictive properties or health hazards. Nicotine is quite legal (logically QED). A more basic question is whether society has the right to control the personal activities of any individual (assuming it does not put others at risk —- society's duty is to regulate things like Driving Under the Influence). No substance is safe for everyone. All have relative risks. Given adequate information about the risks of any substance, who has the privilege of deciding what to use? As to the effects of psychoactive substances suggest reading Rober Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic (and if you wish to go further also his Mad in America). Don't accept his arguments unquestionably. To learn to analyze and question anything you read suggest Antony Flew's How to Think Straight (excellent layman's introduction to logic). Read, honestly evaluate and remember:
All truth passes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed.
Second it is violently opposed.
Third it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Yay!