Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

ecause ecstasy use is connected with night life. Most of the consumers are men (84%).It is very difficult to define the social status of ecstasy users. Nevertheless, they showa higher professional integration (41% in 1995) than cannabis users (39%) or heroineusers (21%).Ecstasy use is extended all through the country. In 1991, 21 departments; in 1993,34; in 1994, 60; in 1995, 69, …. The North goes ahead, followed by Paris and LesAlpes-Maritimes. Ecstasy is a phenomenon in expansion that goes beyond the borders..A MORE AND MORE STUDIED SOCIAL PHENOMENON.A non-exhaustive approach to ecstasy studies.There is not much literature on the subject in France. We find a first article in“Actuel”, in February, 1989, and another in VSD (OGER A.: Ecstasy, pill of love, pillof death- VSD, 1989, 628, 85-90). Afterwards, there is an article in “Le NouvelObservateur”, in August of the same year (ETCHEGOIN M.F.: Ecstasy, philtre oflove?, N.O. August 1989). Then, D.LESTRADE publishes in the magazine “RollingStone”, in April 1990 an article based on the ecstasy use in United States: Ecstasy? Becareful, too sweet a drug. In 1994, PERROT C. writes Mystic Raves, in “Actuel”,1994,40; G. BOULLEY, Why do young people rave? (Among young people, there is anew fashion that finds its weekly consecration in a celebration that lasts the whole nightlong, accompanied by techno music: the rave (in French, the delirium, to make it surenothing better than an “X” boy or ecstasy (XTC), a synthetic drug that invades themarket), in “Le Impatient”, September 1994 and, finally, another article appears in“Nova Magazine” in November 1995, written by BOREL V.: Ecstasy.During the last two years a specialised press of the techno movement has beendeveloped: CODA n.1 and n. special 1995-1996, “Sans Nom”, ”La Revue des Moeurs”,spring, 1995, where we find a collective dossier: “TRANCES; riots, possessions,hypnosis, paranoia, intoxication”, that can be summed up in the following lines:“Trust in what is unknown, obtain knowledge through audacity, wild story oftightrope walkers of the Electronic Age, cyberhardcores, techno-hippies, post-ravers,zippies reconciled with their passions for the new cultural virus, the anti-Aids, a“chamanique” virus in “chamanarquiste” expansion that makes its followers meet inhuge celebrations of a new way of life, the rave culture. From the beginning of thecenturies, human beings sniff, taste, chew, swallow, smoke the world (…). Everythingbecomes a drug (…). If only we were drunk! Men want to escape everywhere, at anyprice (…). The experience of hallucinogen intoxication separates us from animalrepetition. Drugs cover the conscience (…) Every prohibition is unbearable, worse thanevil. Man is a sponge”(“Sans Nom”, spring 1995).The sociologist Patrick MIGNON publishes a first article in 1989, in the magazine“Esprit”: The new psychodelic drugs and chemical happiness (Esprit, 1989, 7/8).Later on, this researcher leads a wider socio-anthropological study that constitutes the130