Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

various chapters to analysing the subject. In the eighties, some American psychiatristsused this ability of MDMA to facilitate communication and overcome resistance inpsychotherapeutic contexts (Downing, 1986; Greer and Tolbert, 1986).Saunders (1993) also quotes the case of the Swiss Society for Psycholitic Therapywhich claimed to have had great success in using ecstasy to treat addictions, traumasand emotional problems. “I believe, Saunders said, that the real dangers are emotional,more than physical. The basic effect is to lower the defences; while this may be usefulin psychotherapy and enable the person using it to let go and feel good, it can also bevery destructive”. After making some calculations on alleged deaths from ecstasy, hesays, “Those who take it have 33 times more chance of dying on the roads and 10 timesmore playing football -if this were their hobby”.“It is a drug whose legitimacy for consumers is supported by its medical qualities.In peer therapy, in accelerating words... in the treatment of certain cancers, it iseliminating sequels such as fear from the past...”(Kokoreff and Mignon, 1994).IT ISA“DEMOCRATIC” DRUGThe observations of Kokoreff and Mignon (1994) are rather interesting in theiranalysis of an abundant literature on the subject, especially of English origin. “Theobservers show that the fashion (of rave and ecstasy) is cheap and that it is an aspect ofthe right of the poor to enjoy themselves. The moral panic (reaction by the reactionarysectors of society) would be explained as fear of the powerful in the face of disorder oras a puritan reaction in the face of the carnivalesque aspect of the populace and anincomprehension of the essentially hedonistic, and, therefore, non-violent, nature of thismovement”. They go on to say, “Ecstasy achieves its place in the ideology of a safedrug, good for the individual and good for society, like a chemical invention ofdemocratic ideology”.“The rave culture is a social construction. Through this movement one may read theutopia of the new psychedelics, its democratic side; Acid House wants to show that eachone can create his/her own music and can dominate technology, eliminating dependencyon the aesthetics imposed by another or the stereotyped musical categories... the utopiaof a society where all classes, all races mix, where identities are constantly changing,where the everybody can be a celebrity, by being able to enter such a disco”(Kokoreffand Mignon, 1994).IT IS A MODERN DRUGIt is frequent to find references in the grey literature, in the media specific for youngpeople and even in some professional literature to its being a safe clean drug, with fewproblems. There are designer drugs for all occasions. The importance of the purity ofthe substance is insisted on among users and in certain preventive campaigns based ondamage reduction policies which means achieving a standard of quality similar to that101