Are people “stupid” taking pills assumed to be MDMA when they might not be? Isn’t this, as a senior NSW policeman said, “just playing Russian roulette”?
No, people taking ecstasy are not taking stupid risks and they are definitely not playing Russian roulette – which carries a one in six chance of dying. But even when taking “street” ecstasy the chances of serious harm are still small, despite the inherent risks of consuming a black market product. There are about a dozen ecstasy deaths per year in Australia though every week tens of thousands of Australians take the drug. One of the reasons so many people keep taking ecstasy is that they know from their own experience and that of their peers that there is a very high chance that they will have an enjoyable experience and only a tiny chance that they will end up in hospital or die.
Governments have no greater chance of stopping people taking ecstasy because of the rare death than they would stopping people driving because of the rare road crash death.
Some commentators advocate a “cultural change” so that ecstasy taking would stop thereby providing a solution to the recent spate of deaths. Will this ever happen?
No it won’t. Ecstasy is here to stay.
People will continue to use drugs like ecstasy much like they continue to use alcohol. We have more chance of “nudging” people to less risky behaviours if the drug is even partly regulated.
If Australians were willing for our country to become a police state like Singapore, it is possible that the use of ecstasy would decline considerably. Otherwise, where there is a demand, there will always be a supply
What about cigarette smoking? Haven’t we seen a cultural shift with fewer people now starting to smoke than ever before?
Yes, we have. But that’s after considerable credible scientific evidence that smoking really is very dangerous. Here the Russian roulette analogy does apply: about 50% of smokers will die from a tobacco-related illness. And nicotine is also much more habit-forming than MDMA.