Scientific evidence that ecstasy damages the brain is fundamentally flawed and has misled politicians and the public, according to New Scientist magazine. Long, but EXCELLENT article.
Pubdate: April 20, 2002
Source: New Scientist (UK)
Page: 3 (editorial) 26-33 (article)
Copyright: New Scientist, RBI Limited 2001
Contact: letters@newscientist.com
Website: http://www.newscientist.com/
Author: David Concar and Claire Ainsworth
EDITORIAL: E IS FOR EVIDENCE [cover image]
[Brainscan image accompanies editorial]
E is for evidence
Basing drugs policy on flawed science helps no one
THERE are no ironclad certainties in science. All theories and observations have their critics. And just because a finding appears in a peer-reviewed journal doesn't make it the last word: journals exist as much to enliven debate as to get it right. So on one level, our inquiry into the quality of the scientific evidence suggesting ecstasy harms brain cells is perhaps unsurprising (see p 26).
What we found is that certain high-profile studies claiming ecstasy causes lasting damage are based on flawed brain scans. But so what? Other teams will eventually repeat the experiments with better techniques. The truth will out. And in the meantime, does it matter if the evidence is shaky as long as it sends a suitably grim warning to people taking the drug?
In this case it matters a lot. These scans are not minor bits of academic science. They can be selectively presented to make it look as though ecstasy users have blotchy holes in their brains (see left). It's a potent visual message that's been seized on by drugs education campaigns and continues to guide those who set drugs penalties. That might just be defensible if the findings were simply disputed or uncertain. But our investigation suggests the experiments are so irretrievably flawed that the scientific community risks haemorrhaging credibility if it continues to let them inform public policy.
Parents, teachers and teenagers are increasingly clamouring for reliable evidence on the harm drugs do, not moralising or hyped pseudo-science. And once created, myths about illicit drugs are hard to slay. In the 1970s, scientists published papers purporting to show that cannabis damages brain cells in monkeys. The experiments were refuted, but anti-drugs campaigners made sure the earlier message stuck. Even today, some drugs education programmes in the US wrongly claim that science has proved marijuana can destroy brain cells.
We are not saying that ecstasy is harmless to brain cells. It might not be. But the jury is still out. Which means scientists must resist the temptation to turn their always complex-and sometimes flawed-findings into simple scare stories in pursuit of grants and headlines. The scientific community must also do more to persuade people that it really is impartial and not following a political agenda. Scores of published papers examine the neurotoxic potential of ecstasy. Very few do the same for Prozac-style antidepressants, even though these drugs act on the same serotonin synapses in the brain as ecstasy and are swallowed daily by millions. Where are the colourful scans proving that these legal substances don't cause lasting biochemical changes?
When it comes to illicit drugs, too many critics already accuse scientists of being in the pocket of government paymasters eager for scary evidence of harm. Scientists must not hand them ammunition on a plate. They must rise above the politics of the drugs war by ensuring the same high level of scrutiny for prescription pills-and by clearing up the mess about brain scans.
ECSTASY ON THE BRAIN
Some say it will kill you or poison your brain, others that it's a safe enough high if you take precautions. Despite official campaigns highlighting ecstasy's dangers, the drug has never been more popular with clubbers. Are they recklessly risking brain damage or worse, or sensibly ignoring anti-drug propaganda. David Concar looks for the facts behind the hype
IN A SMALL clinic in Charleston, South Carolina, preparations are under way for a landmark medical experiment. As New Scientist went to press, the researchers were still waiting for final approval from an ethics panel. But if all goes to plan, a dozen or so traumatised victims of violent crime will soon be given a mind-altering substance in a bid to release them from their terrible fears.
The trial is funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a maverick body founded by an enthusiast with a drugs policy PhD called Rick Doblin. And if it seems a little hippy-trippy, appearances are deceiving. Double-blinded and placebo-controlled, the trial is, on paper at least, as rigorous as anything a pharmaceuticals company might carry out. What's more, every detail has been approved by stern-faced government regulators at the US Food and Drug Administration.
Their colleagues over at the Drug Enforcement Agency are furious, and it's not hard to see why. The pill in question is ecstasy, otherwise known as MDMA. And in normal circumstances of course, government authorities do not see swallowing it as a remedy for the psychological effects of crime. They regard it as a crime itself, not to mention a threat to people's health. Especially in the US, where the drug's rising popularity has been rattling law enforcers.
Indeed, fearing a crack-style epidemic, the US government has in the past couple of years stiffened legal penalties and stepped up efforts to publicise the dangers. Dose for dose, ecstasy offences are now punished more harshly in the US than those involving heroin. Radio ads and posters in malls warn of memory loss. The hugely influential National Institute on Drug Abuse near Washington DC has even been distributing postcards picturing brain scans. The cards set a normal brain, looking bright and radiant, alongside a "brain after ecstasy" -- a lump with dark blotches that look like holes.
In other words, while bona fide doctors supported by one US government agency get ready to dole out E as a medicine, other agencies are doing their utmost to warn teenagers off the drug. It's all very confusing. And you'll find equally mixed messages elsewhere. Take Britain. Last year the government introduced a tough new law making it a crime for club owners to permit the use of ecstasy on their premises. This year it issued a booklet telling the same club owners to lay on chill-out rooms, treatment areas and plentiful supplies of water. If not a green light to ecstasy use, then surely a sign of greater tolerance... or maybe not. For in Britain, the law puts ecstasy on a par with heroin and crack cocaine. And while some senior British police officers think that's wrong, the government insists it will not be downgrading a substance that the evidence to date shows is so dangerous.
But just how dangerous is it? In recent years the US government has spent tens of millions of dollars, way more than anyone else, trying to pinpoint the harm. And according to its most senior scientific officials there's no longer any doubt: even if it doesn't kill you, ecstasy is a recipe for lasting, possibly permanent, damage to the serotonin neurons in the brain that are involved in everything from memory and mood to sleep, sex and appetite. In a hearing before the Senate last July, NIDA's then director Alan Leshner stated: "There is across-the-board agreement that brain damage does occur." Research, he added, has "unequivocally shown that MDMA literally damages brain cells".
New Scientist went behind the scenes to talk to a wide range of researchers. We found that no such agreement exists. Nobody claims ecstasy is benign. It isn't, and never could be-no drug is. Yet few of the experts we contacted believe that research has yet proved ecstasy causes lasting damage to human brain cells or memory. Far from it, according to some, the highest-profile evidence to date simply cannot be trusted.
Blotchy brain scans of ecstasy users have become the ace card in public information campaigns. In the US, they also strongly influenced the move to tougher sentences. Yet impartial experts told us that the scans, though published in a respected journal, are based on experiments so fundamentally flawed they risk undermining the credibility of attempts to educate people about the risks of drugs. "The brain scans do not prove ecstasy damages serotonergic neurons," said one researcher, who asked for anonymity. "Whether to use the evidence is therefore a matter of politics rather than science."
Our enquiry doesn't prove ecstasy is harmless to brain cells. But it does raise questions key to the future of drugs policies the world over. When the evidence about the safety of an illicit drug is complex and disputed, who gets to decide which findings are sound enough to influence policy? How active should government policy makers be in screening out unreliable findings? And how open should they be about scientific dissent?
Some things about ecstasy are reasonably certain. Like many legal drugs, it affects the way brain cells handle the neurotransmitter serotonin. The cells in question are rooted near the brain's base but have long nerve fibres that fan out into higher regions. Here the fibres meet and communicate with other nerve cells, "messaging" them by squirting serotonin into the tiny joints, or synapses, that connect all nerve cells in the brain.
<CONTINUED>
Pubdate: April 20, 2002
Source: New Scientist (UK)
Page: 3 (editorial) 26-33 (article)
Copyright: New Scientist, RBI Limited 2001
Contact: letters@newscientist.com
Website: http://www.newscientist.com/
Author: David Concar and Claire Ainsworth
EDITORIAL: E IS FOR EVIDENCE [cover image]

[Brainscan image accompanies editorial]
E is for evidence
Basing drugs policy on flawed science helps no one
THERE are no ironclad certainties in science. All theories and observations have their critics. And just because a finding appears in a peer-reviewed journal doesn't make it the last word: journals exist as much to enliven debate as to get it right. So on one level, our inquiry into the quality of the scientific evidence suggesting ecstasy harms brain cells is perhaps unsurprising (see p 26).
What we found is that certain high-profile studies claiming ecstasy causes lasting damage are based on flawed brain scans. But so what? Other teams will eventually repeat the experiments with better techniques. The truth will out. And in the meantime, does it matter if the evidence is shaky as long as it sends a suitably grim warning to people taking the drug?
In this case it matters a lot. These scans are not minor bits of academic science. They can be selectively presented to make it look as though ecstasy users have blotchy holes in their brains (see left). It's a potent visual message that's been seized on by drugs education campaigns and continues to guide those who set drugs penalties. That might just be defensible if the findings were simply disputed or uncertain. But our investigation suggests the experiments are so irretrievably flawed that the scientific community risks haemorrhaging credibility if it continues to let them inform public policy.
Parents, teachers and teenagers are increasingly clamouring for reliable evidence on the harm drugs do, not moralising or hyped pseudo-science. And once created, myths about illicit drugs are hard to slay. In the 1970s, scientists published papers purporting to show that cannabis damages brain cells in monkeys. The experiments were refuted, but anti-drugs campaigners made sure the earlier message stuck. Even today, some drugs education programmes in the US wrongly claim that science has proved marijuana can destroy brain cells.
We are not saying that ecstasy is harmless to brain cells. It might not be. But the jury is still out. Which means scientists must resist the temptation to turn their always complex-and sometimes flawed-findings into simple scare stories in pursuit of grants and headlines. The scientific community must also do more to persuade people that it really is impartial and not following a political agenda. Scores of published papers examine the neurotoxic potential of ecstasy. Very few do the same for Prozac-style antidepressants, even though these drugs act on the same serotonin synapses in the brain as ecstasy and are swallowed daily by millions. Where are the colourful scans proving that these legal substances don't cause lasting biochemical changes?
When it comes to illicit drugs, too many critics already accuse scientists of being in the pocket of government paymasters eager for scary evidence of harm. Scientists must not hand them ammunition on a plate. They must rise above the politics of the drugs war by ensuring the same high level of scrutiny for prescription pills-and by clearing up the mess about brain scans.
ECSTASY ON THE BRAIN
Some say it will kill you or poison your brain, others that it's a safe enough high if you take precautions. Despite official campaigns highlighting ecstasy's dangers, the drug has never been more popular with clubbers. Are they recklessly risking brain damage or worse, or sensibly ignoring anti-drug propaganda. David Concar looks for the facts behind the hype
IN A SMALL clinic in Charleston, South Carolina, preparations are under way for a landmark medical experiment. As New Scientist went to press, the researchers were still waiting for final approval from an ethics panel. But if all goes to plan, a dozen or so traumatised victims of violent crime will soon be given a mind-altering substance in a bid to release them from their terrible fears.
The trial is funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a maverick body founded by an enthusiast with a drugs policy PhD called Rick Doblin. And if it seems a little hippy-trippy, appearances are deceiving. Double-blinded and placebo-controlled, the trial is, on paper at least, as rigorous as anything a pharmaceuticals company might carry out. What's more, every detail has been approved by stern-faced government regulators at the US Food and Drug Administration.
Their colleagues over at the Drug Enforcement Agency are furious, and it's not hard to see why. The pill in question is ecstasy, otherwise known as MDMA. And in normal circumstances of course, government authorities do not see swallowing it as a remedy for the psychological effects of crime. They regard it as a crime itself, not to mention a threat to people's health. Especially in the US, where the drug's rising popularity has been rattling law enforcers.
Indeed, fearing a crack-style epidemic, the US government has in the past couple of years stiffened legal penalties and stepped up efforts to publicise the dangers. Dose for dose, ecstasy offences are now punished more harshly in the US than those involving heroin. Radio ads and posters in malls warn of memory loss. The hugely influential National Institute on Drug Abuse near Washington DC has even been distributing postcards picturing brain scans. The cards set a normal brain, looking bright and radiant, alongside a "brain after ecstasy" -- a lump with dark blotches that look like holes.
In other words, while bona fide doctors supported by one US government agency get ready to dole out E as a medicine, other agencies are doing their utmost to warn teenagers off the drug. It's all very confusing. And you'll find equally mixed messages elsewhere. Take Britain. Last year the government introduced a tough new law making it a crime for club owners to permit the use of ecstasy on their premises. This year it issued a booklet telling the same club owners to lay on chill-out rooms, treatment areas and plentiful supplies of water. If not a green light to ecstasy use, then surely a sign of greater tolerance... or maybe not. For in Britain, the law puts ecstasy on a par with heroin and crack cocaine. And while some senior British police officers think that's wrong, the government insists it will not be downgrading a substance that the evidence to date shows is so dangerous.
But just how dangerous is it? In recent years the US government has spent tens of millions of dollars, way more than anyone else, trying to pinpoint the harm. And according to its most senior scientific officials there's no longer any doubt: even if it doesn't kill you, ecstasy is a recipe for lasting, possibly permanent, damage to the serotonin neurons in the brain that are involved in everything from memory and mood to sleep, sex and appetite. In a hearing before the Senate last July, NIDA's then director Alan Leshner stated: "There is across-the-board agreement that brain damage does occur." Research, he added, has "unequivocally shown that MDMA literally damages brain cells".
New Scientist went behind the scenes to talk to a wide range of researchers. We found that no such agreement exists. Nobody claims ecstasy is benign. It isn't, and never could be-no drug is. Yet few of the experts we contacted believe that research has yet proved ecstasy causes lasting damage to human brain cells or memory. Far from it, according to some, the highest-profile evidence to date simply cannot be trusted.
Blotchy brain scans of ecstasy users have become the ace card in public information campaigns. In the US, they also strongly influenced the move to tougher sentences. Yet impartial experts told us that the scans, though published in a respected journal, are based on experiments so fundamentally flawed they risk undermining the credibility of attempts to educate people about the risks of drugs. "The brain scans do not prove ecstasy damages serotonergic neurons," said one researcher, who asked for anonymity. "Whether to use the evidence is therefore a matter of politics rather than science."
Our enquiry doesn't prove ecstasy is harmless to brain cells. But it does raise questions key to the future of drugs policies the world over. When the evidence about the safety of an illicit drug is complex and disputed, who gets to decide which findings are sound enough to influence policy? How active should government policy makers be in screening out unreliable findings? And how open should they be about scientific dissent?
Some things about ecstasy are reasonably certain. Like many legal drugs, it affects the way brain cells handle the neurotransmitter serotonin. The cells in question are rooted near the brain's base but have long nerve fibres that fan out into higher regions. Here the fibres meet and communicate with other nerve cells, "messaging" them by squirting serotonin into the tiny joints, or synapses, that connect all nerve cells in the brain.
<CONTINUED>