Wednesday, September 23, 2009

History Of Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine

Ecstasy has been around for about 100 years. Ecstasy itself it a slang name for methylenedioxymethylamphetamine, as well as E, XTC, rolls, the club drug, the designer drug, the party drug, the hug drug, disco biscuits, white doves, love drug, lover's speed, and ills. The German scientists, Mannish and Jacobsohn created the drug on accident in 1912 when they were trying to create an intermediate to a vasoconstrictor (which is the narrowing of blood vessels resulting from closure of the muscular walls of the vessels, especially the large arteries, arterioles, and veins.) When blood vessels close, the flow of blood is deceased, which makes the skin pale because not enough blood is getting to the surface. Back then it was considered to be a weight loss drug but wasn't advertised strongly. The drug was unused for around 40 years until. It's next appearance was used in the US military during drug tests. They believed it would work on the soldiers like a lie detector, so they could find out the truth about certain things. Between the 1950's and the 1960's ecstasy was still undiscovered until Alexander Shulgin began to use it in his psychiatry practice (which is medicine that deals with diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders), which started in the late 1970's. He continued to experiment with psychedelic drugs and once he tried it on a friend who was about to quit psychiatry, and he immediately changed his mind and didn't want to quit. Shulgin then found out the power of the drug and kept it on the down low because he didn't want it to be abused. Other psychiatrists found this discovery and began to use it frequently on their patients to relate to them better and terminate defenses. The most intense affect that ecstasy had on people was how it would break down the walls of communication by taking feelings of remorse, fear and guilt away from the brain. Which is why all the street names for it are based off of happy feelings. During the year of 1984 was when people started to abuse it's use. Mainly college students took advantage of it, because it was easy to get. Some bars in Texas sold it because at that time it still wasn't illegal. Considering ecstasy wasn't nicotine or alcohol and didn't/couldn't have a paten put on it, it was became illegal after the public exposure. In June of 1985 congress passed a law that gave the D.E.A. (drug enforcement administration) rights to abrogate any substance that was harmful to public health. M.D.M.A. was tested on rats, and it caused brain damage. Although psychiatrists made a point that M.D.M.A. was helpful during their treatment, they didn't have enough convincing points to make the D.E.A. legalize it. Therefor the psychiatrists had no choice but to stop using it in their therapy. Ever since it has been exiled, people now are finding ways to make the substance their selves and are selling it illegally. Once you get involved, you can make a ton of profit. A jar of pills is 100 pills, and it can be bought for 700 dollars, which is 7 dollars a pill. And then you can take it into different cities and sell them for 20 dollars a pill, and that is 13 dollars for profit for each pill. It doesn't take a lot of acumen to find out that you can make extreme amounts of money buy selling drugs. There is a lot more history than I ever wouldn't expected, and I'm sure there is more un discovered stuff as well.

Sites
Wall, Aaron. "Ecstasy History." Drugs, Depression, &Anti Depressant Drugs. Web. 02 Oct. 2009. .

"In The Know Zone - Ecstasy." In the know zone. Ed. Syndistar, Inc. Web. 02 Oct. 2009. .

2 comments:

  1. i never thought the military used ecstasy as a lie detector. I never knew that it was used to treat patients with mental disorders. I think that it is a drug that can be helpful for people that are depress because the drug takes away a lot of sad feelings.

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  2. This is truly interesting Kelly-- there is so much behind it that I really never knew. It's always enlightening to see how things come to be where they are. I hope you will be able to find more on the use of it for psychosis versus the abuse of it. Also, I wonder what the long-term effects have been shown to be on humans since it has been around now for awhile. You used abrogate well, but acumen didn't necessarily make sense in that context. Remember that acumen is a noun-- a thing, something you have. i.e. It doesn't take a lot of acumen to figure out that you can make a good profit off of ecstasy!

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