Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

–“clean, easy to use drug and convenient” (effect) with “those who take ecstasydon’t drink at the same time” and with “the problem with ecstasy is that you don’tknow what you are taking” (problematic).–“relaxing” (effect) with “dangerous drug because it creates addiction” and with“leads to death” (problematic).–“sharpens ideas” (effect) with “depressive in the long term” (problematic).–“Reasonable price” (effect before) with “leads to death” and “dangerous drugbecause it creates addiction” (problematic).We see that none of the 4 items which have served to establish bridges between bothchains of representation are those which we could consider essential in the definition ofone or other block. For example, the fact that the item “ecstasy has a reasonable price”has associations with items which are normally in the area of the implied problematic,does not appear to change things much. Also “clean, easy to use drug and convenient”is a relatively neutral item and it should not surprise us that it is associated with itemsin the “problematic” block such as “those who take ecstasy don’t drink alcohol at thesame time” or “the problem is that you don’t know what you’re taking”.That “sharpens the ideas” which belongs to the “effects” block shows associationwith “depressive in the long term” may simply signify -bearing in mind that each itemis chosen in the contrary sense of belonging to two different blocks- that it is inagreement, that it sharpens ideas and that it rejects the idea that it produces depressions.“relaxes” is one of the less typical effects. In fact, it is one of the effects least chosen -we remind you that it is one of the questions in that part of the questionnaire dealingwith the characteristics of ecstasy consumption- with the exception of the Dutch samplewhere, once again, we see that it behaves differently. Therefore, its association with twothemes in the problematic block does not distort.ITEMS WHICH CHANGE THE BLOCKAmong the components which change its usual position are “with ecstasy you losecontrol” and “people who take ecstasy are people with problems” which go from theproblematic sector to the effects group. “loss of control” could be perfectly understoodas an effect -desirable even, for sensation seekers- fitting in perfectly with the otheritems in the group. Simply, it is an item which stops being thought of in terms ofproblematic and goes on to become, more or less, an effect. We can find lessexplanation for the change in position of the second item “people who take ecstasy arepeople with problems”.“Reasonable price” gives up its associations with the items that form the “effects”group attributable to ecstasy and becomes part of the problematic block (of the threeassociation, there are two with items from the problematic point of view). We believethat it is not a very emblematic component and its partial association with theproblematic does not compromise the group.115