"FOR the first hour you're wondering I is this going to work; then you start coming up on the E, and it's total unadulterated joy; Then you're dancing your head off. It's great," says one user.

To understand why people take ecstasy, say users, you need to understand its role in youth culture. Dance clubs are at the heart of this culture.

It's a bank holiday weekend, and Louise and Ed are going to one of Cork's top clubs, and have already taken a tablet each. Inside the atmosphere seems very positive. "People are coming up on their Es, dancing around, chatting, all friendly, waiting for the night to take off," says Ed.

There seems to be no hostility around. "There's no macho stuff. People's egos go to the back of their heads. You rarely see any fights. Complete strangers chat to each other and they get on great," says Louise.

After 20 minutes their moods change and they begin to smile and chat more. Within minutes they're dancing. The rooms are packed and quite hot but water is freely available and Louise and Ed take regular breaks.

"You get the odd nutter, but otherwise it's like one big happy family," says Louise. "If anything does happen, everyone is on a love buzz and other people will help you," says Ed.

At the end of the night everybody leaves peacefully. Afterwards Ed and Louise go for a coffee. After that Ed heads home while Louise goes to a couple of parties and smokes cannabis.

While such a night might be fairly typical for a lot of users, many admit that they have had bad experiences. Of the 86 users contacted for this project, almost 30 per cent admitted unpleasant reactions: one in four collapsed taking the drug; over a half suffered a physical illness and a third had short term psychological problems like depression.

Some users stop taking the drug if they have a sufficiently bad experience, but others feel that the good outweighs the bad. Many users know the dangers, both immediate and long term. Knowledge, however, ranges from very good to average to very poor.

Dr Eamon Keenan notes that knowledge is not necessarily enough. "It's the attitude that it won't happen to me, that is the biggest worry."

Many believe that people take ecstasy because they are physically addicted to it and can't give it up, like heroin. Most experts disagree. It is more likely, they say, that because ecstasy is a type of amphetamine, it could be psychologically addictive.

Many users say they are not addicted to ecstasy any more than drinkers are addicted to a few pints at the weekend. Others admit that it is, or at least can be, addictive. Some users admit to being depressed during the week and not being able to go clubbing without taking the drug.

There are also reports of users taking up to 10 or 20 tablets at one go, or regularly every weekend. "A lot depends on your attitude, whether you have an addictive personality or not," says one user.

"Some people may be psychologically susceptible to becoming addicted to the drug. It's usually a combination of both the drug and the person," says Dr Des Corrigan.

Of the 86 users, over two thirds took more than one tablet at a go. "This figure suggests tolerance developing among users - that they are taking more and more of it to get the same effect. This, in turn, could lead on to dependence," says Dr Corrigan. Again the individual factor is crucial, he adds.

Most ecstasy users find it hypocritical that their drug is demonised, when legal drugs such as alcohol are par for the course.

"When I talk to teachers and parents about drugs I make the point that the drugs that are far more likely to kill their children - and themselves - are the two legal drugs. They can't say our drugs are safe, your drugs are dangerous'," says Dr Corrigan.

"Young people drinking has become acceptable among parents, because parents will not change their own habits of drinking. It's easier for them to demonise esoteric substances such as ecstasy and cannabis," says Jimmy Connolly, addiction counsellor with the Midlands Health Board.

Research in Britain estimates that alcohol is involved in up to 50 per cent of murders and up to 70 per cent of assaults and that alcohol has a direct and close related effect on aggression, with a particularly strong relationship between alcohol and domestic violence.

IN contrast, ecstasy users cannot see why they should be regarded as criminals. The question now is how should Ireland respond to a large and growing ecstasy using population.

"I am tired of seeing ecstasy being described as a glamour drug. It is not some kind of so called soft drug. Ecstasy is a killer drug," said the Minister for Justice, Nora Owen, in July 1995. State policy has generally followed this view with criminalisation and anti ecstasy campaigns to the fore.

School drugs education programmes, however, have long been criticised by many pupils and drug workers for lacking credibility.

The Department of Health says it tried to avoid this in its recent campaign. However, the core message of the campaign is "Drugs Destroy Lives". This type of fear message does not work for most young people because it does not reflect users' experiences of the drug, say users and many drug workers.

All the time, ecstasy use continues to grow and there are few signs that it will stop growing in the foreseeable future.

In Britain, where the estimated using population of between 500,000 to one million remains steady 10 years after ecstasy emerged, health education campaigns place more emphasis on health concerns rather than on scaring people. Harm reduction messages are now part of overall policy.

Harm reduction implicitly acknowledges that people are taking drugs but tries to minimise the risks. There are no signs that the Department of Health is adopting this approach. The only harm reduction message in the new campaign - not to drink too much water - is implied.

Dr Corrigan believes harm reduction messages are crucial: "We need to know how to minimise the harm users are doing to themselves. Anything that keeps people alive - you've got to try it. You don't have the moral right to deny people that information. It's accepted in relation to heroin." He adds, however, that such information would not minimise the risk of long term damage.

One of the key harm reduction messages has long been to drink water. This has since had to be modified after Leah Betts in England died because her brain became swollen due to massive water retention - ecstasy had caused her urinary system to shut down. "You should sip a pint of water an hour; even better is fruit juice or isotonic sports drinks," says Dr Corrigan. The latter drinks provide the body with the essential electrolytes it needs.

This is a view backed by Detective Noel Clarke, who thinks the harm reduction concept is a good one. "Speaking personally, anything that would save life would be a step in the right direction. Dehydration and heatstroke are two of the biggest problems in relation to that - and if it saved some young man or some young woman's life that would be a plus."

THERE are many, however, who are opposed to the idea, believing it will make users feel safer and therefore encourage them to take ecstasy more often.

In Manchester, harm reduction policies have the full backing of the police. Guidelines are issued to the city's clubs regarding the provision of free water, information on overheating, air temperature control, "chill out" rooms (to allow clubbers to rest) and the provision of first aid officials.

According to Dr Tom Gilhooly, who is researching ecstasy deaths across Britain, harm reduction is the best way forward: "Because overheating is a crucial factor in deaths from ecstasy, the best thing we can do is to make dances as safe as possible."

Such an approach has made a big difference in Scotland, he says: "There have been no deaths in Scotland in the last 18 months/two years and that has been due to people following the guidelines issued by the Scottish Drugs Forum." These guidelines are similar to Manchester's.

Police in Manchester are also allowed to give cautions for the possession of drugs. In the Netherlands and some German states the possession of ecstasy is effectively decriminalised.

There have also been calls to look at decriminalisation here.