If MDMA is not as dangerous as claimed, why aren’t we finding other useful things to use it for other than recreation?
We are. There is some evidence that MDMA may be useful for treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Current trials in the USA use MDMA to treat veterans with PTSD from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Getting official approval for medical research using MDMA has been impossible until recently.
Why don’t we regulate MDMA manufacture and distribute it in nightclubs and dance festivals under close supervision?
Good question. Professor David Penington, former vice chancellor of Melbourne University, recommended regulating MDMA in 2012.
On the one hand, authorities justify their (ineffective) crackdowns on ecstasy by arguing that because MDMA is manufactured and distributed by the black market it must be terribly dangerous. On the other hand, when confronted with advocacy to regulate MDMA manufacture and distribution, the same authorities tie themselves in knots trying to argue all drugs (except alcohol and tobacco) are too dangerous to even consider regulating any new drugs.
What should we do now?
Australia should scrap saturation policing with sniffer dogs at youth music dance events and follow the Europeans: we should allow drug checking and evaluate the benefits and costs.
It won’t eliminate all risks, but will almost certainly reduce them.
Source: The Guardian