An extremely silly opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal argues against the legalization of soft drugs such as ecstasy on the grounds that–get this–new studies show it may be bad for you if you take a lot of it.
Yep, taking an overdose of ecstasy not only leads to a whole lot of euphoria in the user, but possibly an increased likelihood of depression and Parkinson’s disease in later life. Here is the damning nut graph:
Unlike cocaine or heroin, ecstasy isn’t at the heart of street crime, gangs or Third World drug cartels, but that doesn’t make it safe.
OK, stop laughing. What this amounts to is a wonderful argument for banning smoking and drinking.
First off, lung cancer and liver cirrhosis have much higher levels of mortality than a bout of not remembering that you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Second, second-hand ecstasy is much safer than either alcohol or cigarettes: whereas all that an ecstasy user wants to do is hug you, a drunkard will just as likely hit you. And whether or not it causes cancer, second-hand smoke does gets in your eyes; all that ecstasy users cause is is longer queues at nightclubs.
A more cynical view of the rhetorical public health policy question that is asked (“Are we spawning a new generation of people who will struggle with depression over their lifetime?”) is that the problem with ecstasy is precisely that it doesn’t kill you. Smoke too many cigarettes and you get lung cancer, die and stop bothering society. But take ecstasy, get depressed and live till 90; now that’s selfish of you.
I propose giving ecstasy users subsidized cigarettes. Studies show that nicotine alleviates depression and helps prevent the onset of Parkinson’s. And they’d die sooner.
What will actually happen, I can almost guarantee it, is that next year you will see ecstasy/nicotine combo pills on the market. In fact I think I might go look for some VC funding.
[Tue, Oct 15 2002 – 12:10] Felix (www) (email) I’m surprised you didn’t slam the Journal for repeating very silly pseudo-science as though it were Gospel.
The Journal says in its first graf that ecstasy use leads to an increased likelihood of depression and Parkinson’s disease. But there’s no reason to believe that to be true. The experiment in question injected MDMA into monkeys in such huge quantities that 20% of them died immediately. The other 80% were then autopsied, and found to have decreased levels of dopamine a few weeks later.
From this, the “scientists” seem to have concluded that humans taking Ecstasy will (a) have decreased levels of dopamine going forwards — despite the fact that autopsies of heavy ecstasy users haven’t shown this — and (b) that this will lead to Parkinson’s later in life — despite there’s no evidence that lower dopamine levels now mean lower dopamine levels in decades’ time.
And of course it’s obvious that you can’t simply infer that humans will behave the same way as monkeys when 20% of the monkeys died immediately: I don’t see 20% of the ravers at dance clubs dropping dead on any given night.
[Tue, Oct 15 2002 – 12:18] Felix (www) (email) Can I just hold up the following sentence for ridicule, as well?
Ecstasy is the common name for MDMA, or 3-4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Often called the “hug drug,” ecstasy makes users feel euphoric and is popular at dance parties called raves.
WHY do we need to know the full chemical name? WHEN is ecstasy ever called “the hug drug”? And WHAT are we to make of that “dance parties called raves”? That if a dance party isn’t called a rave then ecstasy won’t be popular there?
If this is the best that the antis can do in the rhetorical war about ecstasy, then I’m afraid they might as well give up right now.
[Tue, Oct 15 2002 – 12:22] Felix (www) (email) Oh, and you won’t ever see an ecstasy-nicotine combo pill. They work on very different time scales (E, hours; nicotine, seconds), and in any case nicotine can’t be ingested orally (it needs to go straight into the bloodstream, usually by being absorbed through a patch or through the mucous membranes and the lungs).
[Wed, Oct 16 2002 – 13:05] Charles Kenny (www) (email) Is the view out your window different when the Mac is off?.
And talking of which, the links section to porn is hadly needed, in that people seem to be able to find it well enough without you, if it’s really true that Danii (of the Hard Drive) has been downloaded one billion times, making her as popular as the Big Mac, but dirtier. Kind of the Dirty Mac. Which would be agreat name for the links section if you do chose to make it Boom boom.
What is the link to the current blog? There is none. I don’t check this site as often as Matty or Eury (both of whom argue that the other lacks a life, one wonders), so I miss the chance to ramble in timely fashion on the one blog in ten that Stefan puts up that is actually worth a response. So I’m putting my drivel here, on the most recent one, because I can.
[Wed, Oct 16 2002 – 22:14] Matthew (email) how very meta-blog
[Wed, Oct 16 2002 – 22:23] Matthew (email) and to tackle your first, and most important question, my guess is that stockholm doesn’t exist when stefan’s mac is off. i don’t think he actually left new york, but instead pixellated himself and then climbed INSIDE his computer. everything we see is a computer-generated simulcre of a potential sweden stefan imagines he might be in were he to actually be there. the computer, i think, is somewhere on the new jersey turnpike.
[Thu, Oct 17 2002 – 01:38] joachim i think you’re on to something kenny. stefan, or should i say the image of stefan i’ve seen in stockholm is sort of vague and pixelly. he doesn’t really seem to be with it either. i haven’t given it much of a thought so far, but the new jersey turnpike theory makes sense to me. it sounds like something stefan would do and enjoy