BRITAIN: A row erupted yesterday after three experts suggested that ecstasy, an illegal drug popular with culb-goers, may not be dangerous and people were being misled about it.
The psychologists criticised animal and human studies which say the drug causes long-term brain damage and mental problems. Other scientists, however, insisted the harmful effects of ecstasy were undeniable.
Writing in the magazine The Psychologist, the researchers said reported adverse effects of ecstasy could even be imaginary due to the widespread belief that the drug causes long-term harm.
Two of the experts are from the University of Liverpool. They are Dr Jon Cole, a reader in addictive behaviour, and Mr Harry Sumnall, a post-doctoral researcher. The third author is Prof Charles Grob, director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in California.
Surveys indicate about 10 per cent of UK people aged 15 to 29 have tried ecstasy.The drug is also widely available in Ireland, where in 2000 the Garda seized more than half a million tablets - more than twice the amount intercepted in the previous year. The 2000 figure accounts for 24 per cent of drug seizures that year.
The Garda Annual Report 2000, the most recent available record of drug statistics, states that 551,713 ecstasy tablets and 5,644 ecstasy capsules were recovered that year.
Dr Cole and his colleagues say studies of ecstasy-users were riddled with confounding factors and researchers were guilty of bias.
"This suggests that hypotheses concerning the long-term effects of ecstasy are not being uniformly substantiated and lends support to the idea that ecstasy is not causing long-term effects associated with the loss of serotonin."
However, three other ecstasy experts writing in The Psychologist dismissed the notion that symptoms of long-term ecstasy use were all in the mind. Dr Michael Morgan, senior lecturer in experimental psychology at the University of Sussex, Brighton, said he had found "overwhelming evidence" that regular ecstasy use causes impulsive behaviour and impaired verbal memory.