PHOENIX (voa) – A recent national survey suggests that over the past two years the number of young Ecstasy users has increased by 71 percent.
Ecstasy is called the ‘club drug’ because it is frequently used at parties and in nightclubs.
Dr. Terri Horton, vice president of Phoenix House, the nation’s largest non-profit drug treatment organization, says ecstasy can cause serious physical and psychological damage.
“We see medically that there have been a number of emergency room visits-over 4,500 last year, a number of deaths resulting from where the body is unable to control its temperature, muscle breaks down, dehydration can occur certainly with the use of the drug, a lot of other problems,” the doctor said. “Psychiatricaly, we see episodes of depression or panic disorders sometimes even psychosis several weeks after use.”
And Dr. Linda Cotler of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, says that animal studies have shown that Ecstasy can cause permanent depression. “If these damages do not reverse themselves, there will be this permanent damage to serotonin receptors, which means that people will not be able to be as happy as they might want to be later in life,” she said. “The concern is that there will be a group of people that have been chemically depressed because of their use of these kinds of drugs.”
Teenager Clarissa McKenny was addicted to ecstasy, a combination of the stimulant amphetamine and hallucinogenic chemicals, for several years. Her family eventually placed her in a treatment program after she was arrested for petty theft. She says she needed the money to buy ecstasy, which can cost $30 to 40 per pill. “I didn’t actually know that I had a problem with ecstasy until I came into treatment. I thought I was having fun, that Ecstasy wasn’t addictive,” she said.
Like Clarissa, many people who take ecstasy regularly are not aware that they are addicted. And many end up increasing the doses because they develop tolerance to the drug. Experts say Ecstasy can also be what is known as a ‘gateway’ drug, that is, a stepping- stone to even more powerful drugs. Dr. Gena Marstin, vice president of the Partnership for A Drug Free America, which conducted the survey, compares ecstasy to cocaine. She says many cocaine users in the 1970s and 80s felt the way ecstasy users feel today: that it is just an innocuous stimulant. “There would be a great high, a lot of pleasure and a very low perception of the risks for what is a very dangerous drug,” she said.
There is a great concern about growing use of ecstasy, which like cocaine is highly addictive. And medical researchers warn that if young people do not develop a better understanding of the dangers of the ‘club drug’, there is a real potential for long-term problems.
