i’m annoyed…
there was a congressional hearing wherein ‘experts’ compared ecstasy to crack, and said that there’s an epidemic going on.
an epidemic? where? i lived through a crack epidemic in the 80’s and early 90’s, and the cultural symptoms were very easy to see.
emaciated women having sex for $10 so that they could fuel their crack addiction. scores of homeless people doing anything to make enough money to buy crack. etc.
ecstasy might not be a healthy drug, but it’s absurd to compare it to crack.
people abuse ecstasy, they don’t become addicted to it, at least that’s been my observation over the last 15 years. almost everyone i know has tried ecstasy and i don’t know a single person who’s become addicted to it. i do know people who’ve abused it and done it too often, but that doesn’t constitute addiction.
most people i know have done ecstasy a handful of times and had fairly positive experiences with it.

i would never be so presumptuous as to characterize it as a benign drug, but most people who’ve done it in moderation don’t seem to have been negatively effected by it.
i just get so annoyed at these reactionary politicians and civic leaders who need to invent a crisis in order to feel important and thus justify their positions.

a fair and balanced description of the effects of ecstasy would be the most responsible thing that the government could do. and maybe they could funnel some money into those organizations like ‘dance safe’ that test drugs for people before they take them.

bad ecstasy and ecstasy containing harmful ingredients is certainly more of a threat to people than mdma.
why can’t our government just present people with the facts and then let them make up their own minds?
-moby

i came across the following news item, and i wanted to pass it along, non-judgementally, so that people can be aware of the new sentencing guidelines:

wednesday march 21 4:12 am et
panel toughens sentencing for ecstacy

washington (reuters) – the u.s. sentencing commission sharply increased the guideline penalties for selling the hallucinogenic amphetamine known as ecstasy, the washington post reported on wednesday.

beginning may 1, the punishment for importing or selling the party drug will be more severe than for selling powder cocaine, the report said.

the new sentencing guidelines to be followed by federal judges will roughly triple the likely prison term for sale of 200 grams of ecstasy — about 800 pills — from 15 months to five years, the newspaper said. the penalty for sale of 8,000 pills will rise from 41 months to 10 years, the post said.

opponents told the commission that ecstasy is not as addictive or destructive as the opiates and hallucinogens that have inspired similarly long sentences.

the national association of criminal defense lawyers accused the commission of ignoring scientific testimony.

“this is a wholly political act,” said the group’s president edward mallett. “the scientific experts we presented in the hearing before the commission testified unequivocally that ecstasy is not addictive and causes none of the long-term harm caused by heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine,” he said in a statement.

“many sons and daughters will go to prison because they don’t study federal rules before they go out on saturday night,” said mallett, who also testified before the commission at a hearing on monday.

by presenting this i’m not condoning or condemning the sale or use of ecstasy. i’m just trying to make people aware of the change in sentencing guidelines.
-moby