Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

♦ A last question is the attitude of the investigators, politicians and mass mediabefore these drugs and the new consumption guide lines. Some investigatorsinform against social alarm that is growing and that is based on the idea thatecstasy will give rise to a situation similar to the one produced with heroin, whilethey believe that it is neither the same drug, nor the same people who consume it,and the context or circumstances are not the same either.As a final comment, one might indicate that in the articles of the years 90-93, it iscommented that “there is no social analysis” (Martínez Ruíz,1993) and that “theMDMA continues to be a mystery for the investigators” (Montero,1991), while thisuncertainty seems to wane as time passes, probably due to the increase of studies aboutthis issue. An indicator of this increase of the amount of investigations is the number ofarticles published: we go from 9 documents in the period 1990-93 to 46 in the period1994-97.With respect to the sources from which this article has been written, they aredistributed almost equally between those based on the author’s own studies and the onesbased on the revision of other studies and authors.GREY LITERATUREThe grey literature that we have available concerning the issue of ecstasy are thecommunications presented in the “Workshop” Days regarding designer drugs,Prevention, Treatment and social Analysis” (Gamella,1996).In the communications of the platform of “assistance”, some entities, be they privateor public, relate their experiences with individuals that have demanded assistance dueto problems with designer drugs. These entities have had to keep adapting to thesedemands as said individuals and their specific problems present their owncharacteristics with respect to consumers of other substances. In this way, specificprograms have been introduced to offer room for the needs of these consumers.The characteristics of the individuals that have requested assistance from the centrescan be summarised in the following: they are youths between the ages of 16 and 28; themajority are males; they study or work; they usually have a medium-high educationallevel; they use the drug for recreational purposes; being therefore week-end users; theyvisit the centre when they are consuming compulsively (8-10 pills on one week-endnight).With respect to the communications about the prevention of designer drugs, weagain discover the need for adapting the preventive strategies to this new phenomenon.The different entities, public or private, have chosen a specific prevention for designerdrugs. The strategy is basically informative and the objectives are both the reduction ofdemand (addressed to non-consumers) and the reduction of the risks (addressed toconsumers)175