Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

The articles describe this artificial world which seems to have been converted intothe only means of enjoyment, of escape from a tedious and difficult daily reality. Inaddition, they sketch out the more juvenile behaviours and fashions of the end of themillennium; all dress the same (Dolce & Gabanna is de rigeur), frequent the sameplaces, listen to the same music, take stimulants to keep up with the weekend rhythmwhich has become a real marathon of fun. In order to attract the reader’s attention, manyarticles , in an alarming tone, the vertiginous spread of the phenomenon which nolonger affects the marginal fringes of youth expressing their malaise in this way, butyoung people normally integrated in society and in the family context, but attracted bythe cult to the group “high”, acid music, to transgression at any price and also toalcohol. What is particularly notable about the articles in reading the press of the lastfew months, is a new stereotype; that of a young “youth high” made up of normalyouths who work and study when they must and who do not appear to create problemsfor their family but who are transformed at weekends, like lycanthropes at full moon,taking on the appearance of aliens who, under the effect of a deafening music,psychedelic lights and stimulating substances and hallucinogens, lose the boundaries ofreality and experience the call to transgression. (“They are middle class children,dissatisfied with themselves. On Saturday nights, they take refuge in the high of thetablets convinced that, unlike heroin, it does them no harm”. “Espresso”, 7 November1996). According to the communications media this would explain the exponentialgrowth in traffic accidents, fights and rapes.The dailies also refer to the polemics between the anti-rock mothers determined tomake war on the discos, the managers, the politicians and the workers in the dancinglocales. They also cite the interventions of the experts who more and more often relatethe search for strong sensations as much to the use of substances as to the accidents onSaturday night and heteroaggressive and self aggressive acts.Other articles describe the so-called “ecstasy tribes” (84,2%), men of an average of23 years of age, with middle to higher education, belonging to the middle class), theplaces where they acquire the tablets, what they cost, their organoleptical characteristicsand their effects.In general, there is a notable trend to consider it a dangerous phenomenon butsomewhat under-evaluated by the different Monitoring Agencies and by people forwhom the word “drug” immediately evokes the idea of heroin.Reviewing the press, shows evidence of a progressive mutation of the socialrepresentation transmitted by the communications media. In the beginning, in the firstarticles to appear on the subject, the information was rather scanty and imprecise, andecstasy was generally described as an exotic phenomenon which involved othercountries and which would be reaching ours. Such messages underlined howunprepared the press were, accustomed to always dealing with the classic drugs (heroinand cocaine), to which they had attributed well-established stereotypes; the first as thedrug of the marginal people, the second, that of the higher socio-economical classes.151