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Pros and Cons of Ecstasy Use

April 19, 2004

Ecstasy users are generally aware of the health risks that they expose themselves to but seem to reject this knowledge in favour of the benefits they experience from taking the drug.

This is the finding of one of three ecstasy research studies presented today, Saturday 17 April 2004, at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference at Imperial College, London.

Dr Philip Murphy and colleagues at Edge Hill College of Higher Education and Liverpool John Moores University questioned 328 ecstasy users about the effects of the drug on personal and social functioning. When the results were analysed, longer-term users tended to rate the drug effects less positively than those who were still relatively new to the drug. Nevertheless, the majority of longer-term users still felt sufficiently positive about the drug effects to continue using it.

The researchers suggest that individuals tend to "weigh-up" the pros and cons of using the drug and that an increased understanding of this weighing-up process will have implications for health education and intervention. Dr Murphy said: "It is likely that some ecstasy users come to prefer the person they are and the world they experience, under the influence of the drug. This may be seen as a form of psychological dependence on ecstasy, even though they are not physically addicted to it".

In another study to be presented today, a group of researchers headed by Lynn Taurah and Dr Chris Chandler of London Metropolitan University, looked at the sleep patterns of past and present ecstasy users and compared them with users of alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and amphetamine. The researchers found that ecstasy users reported greater sleep disturbance than other drug users. No difference was found between current and past ecstasy users, suggesting that the sleep disturbance can be long lasting.

Finally, research by Catharine Montgomery, John Fisk and Russell Newcombe of Liverpool John Moores University will examine the cognitive effects of ecstasy. Ecstasy users were compared with non-users on a test requiring them to write down words beginning with a particular letter or belonging to a particular category. Ecstasy users attained lower scores on all measures, supporting evidence that ecstasy use is associated with cognitive impairment.

British Psychological Society (BPS)

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