Mp Says Ecstasy Isn't Dangerous

[Abrad]

Sandra Kanck in Parliament on Thursday.

STATE MP Sandra Kanck says ecstasy - which has been linked to more than 110 deaths in three years - "is not a dangerous drug".

The Democrats leader told Parliament that after 20 years, there was still no ``evidence that it is a dangerous substance''.

She suggested the drug could have been given to victims of last year's fatal Eyre Peninsula bushfires to help them cope with their trauma.

Bushfire recovery effort chairman Vince Monterola said he was astounded by the comment, labelling it ``an absurd proposition''.

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse warns that ecstasy, also known as MDMA, ``is not safe for human consumption''.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty last month warned that a mistaken belief by young Australians that ecstasy was relatively safe was ``by far the biggest drug problem'' facing Australia.

The Federal Government spent $23 million last year warning of the dangers following revelations by the Australian Crime Commission that per capita, Australians are the biggest users in the world.

Substance Abuse Minister Gail Gago said 112 ecstasy-related deaths nationally between 2001 and 2004 was ``ample evidence'' the drug was harmful. ``Health experts, psychiatric experts and the community do not want a pro-drug policy,'' she said.

Ms Kanck  the last remaining Democrat in the the SA Parliament  announced on Wednesday that she intended to retire from politics at the 2010 election and was therefore ``not scared of a public backlash'' by taking a stand against mainstream opinion.

However, the party's state president, Richard Pascoe, yesterday called on her to stand aside within 12 months, saying he supported defeated MP Kate Reynolds taking her spot in the Legislative Council.

In a wide-ranging speech on drugs, Ms Kanck said she was ``quite disturbed'' by what she called ``an emerging trend of conservatism in politics''.

She claimed ``progressive politics'' was the loser from the March poll, which saw the election of anti-drugs campaigner Ann Bressington, Family First's Dennis Hood and Green Mark Parnell.

``I remind members who might think that all drugs are evil that Jesus partook of wine. He did not have any silly laws that said `this drug is legal, and this one isn't legal','' she said.

``We have been told that ecstasy is a dangerous substance. We do not have the evidence.

``The original 1985 listing of ecstasy, or MDMA, is still being contested. So more than 20 years later, the matter has not yet been resolved.

``In fact, I was saying to people last year after the bushfires on Eyre Peninsula, with all the trauma that was associated with it, that one of the best things you could probably have done for the people on EP who had gone through that trauma was to give them MDMA.

``However, one dare not advocate that, because we are all being tough on drugs, aren't we?''

``Good God,'' is how Eyre Peninsula farmer and SA Farmers Federation executive member Paul Kaden reacted to Ms Kanck's suggestions about dispensing the drug to traumatised bushfire victims. `

`That's one of the strangest comments I've ever heard and totally irresponsible,'' he said.

His comments were echoed by new Family First MP Mr Hood, who described the statement as ``beyond belief''.

Mr Hood said that Ms Kanck had clearly ``lost touch''. ``It is very disappointing.''

[daeron]

guys i think you should send out a mail of support for this woman, ppl who do these kind of things should be supported...
it took balls, esp for a mp and it looks like they wanna get her booted

[Nagognog2]

Hear! Hear!

[-k4ge]

Finally, an MP with the ability to look at the facts of somthing and it's blinded by the propoganda.

[sterling77]

Props to her. It takes a lot of guts to go out and say something like that, being who she is and all.

[Lunar Loops]

Fair play to the woman; if only some of our other elected representatives across the globe had the same courage of their convictions (for there are many who share the view privately, but would never voice it publicly). This appeared today on ABC News Online:
Kanck condemns reporting of ecstasy comment

South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kanck says her views on the illegal drug MDMA, or ecstasy, have been misrepresented.
Ms Kanck has released a statement defending her speech to the Upper House of state Parliament last week.
In it she said there was no evidence that MDMA is dangerous and could have been used therapeutically by victims of the Eyre Peninsula fires.
She says her comments were related to its therapeutic use and linking them with recreational use is to trawl the bottom of journalistic ethics.
Her former Upper House colleague Ian Gilfillan has defended her views but with a qualification.
"I would suggest that, on reflection, Sandra may have worded what she wanted to say better," he said.
In her statement, Ms Kanck adds that she intends to serve all of her remaining four years as an Upper House MP.
The executive of the state Democrats has distanced itself from the comments by the party's last remaining Upper House member.
Party state president Richard Pascoe says those comments do not reflect Democrat policy.
"People are stunned by the statements, not very happy with the statements at all, you know, how much damage has this done to the party?" he said.
"You know we're all working to rebuild the Democrats in South Australia and rebuild the profile, and those sorts of comments don't help."

[Alicia]

When they say ecstasy kills , people are after mdma, which is why there are fatalities it may be wise for MPs to distinguish between a pill that is said to be ecstasy and actual mdma related fatalities in terms of when something is considered harmful.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Very true. People need to hear this all the time.

[Silence_Inc]

great! - the ti is turning - no more bulling ...

but i still have to laugh and cry when i read ---->

"Mr Hood said that Ms Kanck had clearly ``lost touch''. ``It is very disappointing.''

dammnit - lost touch - that's a very strong statement - he might even think she became eaddcited or wtf - mayeb they are scanning her house as we speak ... who are these fools saying what is wrong and right!

indeed - support would be nice ... who is gonna do it??

[Silence_Inc]

Sandra Kanck
The Advertiser: Party fury puts Kanck on brink :

"On Wednesday, Ms Kanck announced plans to retire at the 2010 election and then, later that night in parliament, said there was no evidence that ecstasy was a dangerous drug."

I take her point that our information always needs to be current and up to date. That bit is not disputable. However, we have had well over a hundred unnecessary deaths because of Ecstasy and medical people and our laws have been at cross purposes trying to get drug testing and practical information to people who insist on taking the stuff. Were it not a problem there wouldn't be this utter desire of people to supply drug testing at venues where people are likely to take it. They wouldn't put themselves in the line of fire as they do. They do it because they think young people are worth saving.

You don't actually have to do research for very long to get information about Ecstasy. I did this in 5 minutes:

"Brain imaging research in humans indicates that Ecstasy causes injury to the brain, affecting neurons that use the chemical serotonin to communicate with other neurons. The serotonin system plays a direct role in regulating mood, aggression, sexual activity, sleep, and sensitivity to pain. Many of the side effects users face with Ecstasy use are similar to those found with the use of cocaine and amphetamines: Psychological Ecstasy side effects, including confusion, depression, sleep problems, drug craving, severe anxiety, and paranoia - during and sometimes weeks after taking Ecstasy. Physical Ecstasy side effects such as muscle tension, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, rapid eye movement, faintness, and chills or sweating. Increases in heart rate and blood pressure, a special risk for people with circulatory or heart disease.

Short-term side effects of ecstasy
· Nausea
· Hallucinations
· Chills & sweating
· Increased body temp
· Tremors
· Muscle cramping
· Blurred vision"

Ecstasy Side Effects
(http://www.ecstasyeffects.net/ecstasy-side-effects.htm)

"Research links MDMA use to long-term damage to those parts of the brain that are critical for pleasure, thought and memory.
· Ecstasy has KILLED users as a result of heatstroke (from dancing for hours in a hot club) or mixing with alcohol and other drugs.
· Using Ecstasy can cause one to lose their self-control putting them at risk for becoming a victim of date rape, pregnant, or acquiring sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
· In the Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey, results show that the use of MDMA increased among all grade levels measured in the study- 8th, 10th, and 12th.
· According to the MTF Survey from 1999- 2000 the MDMA use among 12th graders went from 5.6% to 8.2%.
· According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) an estimated 1.5% (3.4 million) Americans had used MDMA at least once during their lifetime.
· The heaviest use (5% or 1.4 million people) was for those between the ages of 18 and 25 years old."

ATOD Prevention Center
(http://www.umes.edu/atod/abuse/drugs/ecstasy.htm)

And if you are still not able to comprehend the effects of Ecstasy, then consult the slide show at:


This is your brain on Ecstasy

http://www.dancesafe.org/slideshow/


the inquisition starts again - and were are the posoitve side efects and the statistcs comparing alcohol sigarets and mdma??? these people are SO OBVIOUS!!! grrrrrrrr

btw : http://sa.democrats.org.au/people/Sa.../SKcontact.htm - contact Sandra ... anyone have an idea of how to do this? in group or just personal supports?

[anj0vis]

I think I have never seen such a brave statement in western modern day politics... all my respect to her.

[Nagognog2]

Now lets try a list of side-effects, including fatalities, associated with pure MDMA during therapuetic usage while it was legal. As one who was there, Bongo can't start the list with anything other than:

Anxiety - pre-dosage. Then the session was put on hold or stopped.
Insomnia.
Lack of appetite.
Visual changes <up until sleep>.
Stiumlant effects - similar to a low dose of amphetamines - wore off after sleep. Including teeth-grinding.
Hangover the next day.

Any others? PURE MDMA. Not pills.

[LowExpectations]

While I fully advocate legalization, Sandra seems to be a bit slow... making loud, general statements that will take this business nowhere. It sounds to me like she's taken it recently and wants to spread the word about how it made her feel, but ecstasy is not only highly controversial but considered one of the more harmful substances (regardless of strength, ecstasy does more damage to the brain than LSD, marijuana, or even heroin, regardless of its low addiction potential) in my mind. That is no way to go about legalization, she has no clue what she is talking about.

[Nagognog2]

Would you please explain the damage that ANY of these drugs do to the brain? It's all fine and well to make a broad statement like this - but unless you can back it up, it's worthless. Present the evidence.

[Silence_Inc]

someone posted this on an other forum - he found it somewhere but failed to give me the exact source ... i'll post it anyway.

__________________

... The addiction expert says only 10 premature deaths a year in the UK can be blamed on ecstasy, compared with at least 22,000 attributable to drinking. Moreover, he stresses that alcohol related violence is also very common, unlike ecstasy, which is not linked with violence.
The professor agrees with conservative leader David Cameron who recently suggested that E should be in a lower category than class A drugs heroin and cocaine. He writes: "Why is ecstasy illegal when alcohol, a considerably more harmful drug, is not? When we consider that the possession of a drug that is much less dangerous than alcohol can lead to a seven-year prison sentence, whereas alcohol use is actively promoted, perhaps David Cameron did not go far enough."

Nutt's comments have led to strong reactions among drugs prevention associations.
"Ecstasy kills at random and there is a lot of cumulative harm," said David Raynes from the National Drugs Prevention Alliance. "Although there is a lot of harm from alcohol, very few people just die from drinking alcohol, but they do die from taking E. If the Government does downgrade E, then it sends a signal that it's less harmful than it was before."
__________________


my opinion is:

like any other drug there are rules - and with extacy it's - don't combine with alcohol - don't overdo! follow rules about dosage. and when you party - drink alot! ... cause overheating, or dehidration is the most common cause that is linked to extacy - that has led to severe problems. death JUST from using a single 125mg is NEVER HAPPEND!. not even if you do it every week!

stop the inquisition! ... free your heart ...

[Nature Boy]

Originally Posted by Alicia

When they say ecstasy kills , people are after mdma, which is why there are fatalities it may be wise for MPs to distinguish between a pill that is said to be ecstasy and actual mdma related fatalities in terms of when something is considered harmful.

That's the beauty of it though. Ecstasy can kill, MDMA won't (unless someone gobbles back loads of it). It's the ideal way to alienate MDMA as it's automatically linked to an entirely different cocktail of potentially deadly drugs.

[LowExpectations]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

Would you please explain the damage that ANY of these drugs do to the brain? It's all fine and well to make a broad statement like this - but unless you can back it up, it's worthless. Present the evidence.

From erowid:

NEGATIVE
(negative side effects increase with higher doses and frequent use)
inappropriate and/or unintended emotional bonding
tendency to say things you might feel uncomfortable about later
mild to extreme jaw clenching (trisma), tongue and cheek chewing, and teeth grinding (bruxia)
difficulty concentrating & problems with activities requiring linear focus
short-term memory scramble or loss & confusion
muscle tension
erectile disfunction and difficulty reaching orgasm
increase in body temperature, hyperthermia, dehydration (drink water)
hyponatremia (don't drink too much water)
nausea and vomiting
headaches, dizziness, loss of balance, and vertigo
sadness on coming down, sense of loss or immediate nostalgia
post-trip Crash - unpleasantly harsh comedown from the peak effect
hangover the next day, lasting days to weeks
mild depression and fatigue for up to a week
severe depression and/or fatigue (uncommon)
possible strong urge to repeat the experience, though not physically addictive
possible psychological crisis requiring hospitalization (psychotic episodes, severe panic attacks, etc) (rare)
possible liver toxicity (rare)
possible neurotoxicity (controversial)
small risk of death. Approximately 2 per 100,000 users have extreme negative reactions resulting in death. (rare)

And of course there is damage done and damage possible, just as is attributed to everything. It's our job to use these things responsiblity and accept that it is not totally harmless, and should be understood and respected. Making broad statements about its safety is even worse, and serves to discredit the entire drug community.

There are many other drugs that should be legalized in line ahead of ecstasy in my opinion, but that's an entirely seperate debate.

[LowExpectations]

Just found this on erowid.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma...oxicity1.shtml

[sterling77]

Originally Posted by LowExpectations

...considered one of the more harmful substances (regardless of strength, ecstasy does more damage to the brain than LSD, marijuana, or even heroin, regardless of its low addiction potential) in my mind.

I agree with LowExpectations on this statement. The general consensus seems to be that there is enough evidence to say that MDMA definetly causes some neurotoxicity in humans. That just leaves the questions of whether it is at recreational doses, how much damage is recoverable, and if this "neurotoxicity" even has a negative effect on how we function.

[stoneinfocus]

Swim has hab, until now, only postivie effects and after effects, x-use is linked with a more appropiate and lesser use of other drugs (erowid vault) and has far more other positives. If course within every drug that´s somehow widepsread, all the things that life´s to offer will happen with the drug-use or without it ansd there´re
16 thousand deaths (USA?) to aspirine.Concernign alcohol, no drug should be illegal, cause alcohol is the worst, socially, concerning health and agression, concerning abuse and fatalities, concerning the alcoh9lics social enviroment, there´s nothing worse, and this stuff already is clean and readily available, anyone tellign differnt is bullshitting, but you can´t forbid baking bread to stop it.

If one was to read the latest reseaerch, one would see, that all amphetamine (and MDMA/MDA ring-substituded amph) damage done to serotoninem, and dopamnine trnasmiters aer solely oxidative damage, and nowadays we havwe so potent anti-oxidants for any purpose, (peptide-drugs, hexapeptides which exhibit a potent neurological protection are the latest), that we can cope with it, but that would be too much work for the doctores, swim thinks, they´re too lazy to treat swims allergy/psot traumatic stress syndrom/chronic pain with a decent strategy (what did they study for? academcics should invent and further things and in case of medics, therapies, this scum ´s just selling brain-fuck and pharma sponsored induistrial deseases, harvestingthe ever happy insurance money jackpot).

[Swimster]

hmm... swim never though of calling a mysterious pill with supposed
MDMA in it X. So X could be considered diff than MDMA, in that it is
obviously adulterated, hmm. So..we obviously see here that MDMA is
safe, and X, not. Besides this, swim heard of neurotoxic effects form
pure MDMA though. But perhaps most of the deaths are from impure X.
So this makes sense.

Also, hurray to that MP! She's using her head! She's smart.
(or atleast not a dumbass), someone bake her a cake.

[stoneinfocus]

Yeah, could be anything of a psychedelic precursor, some mish mash of MDMA MDA Meth, LSD, more and other ring-substitutions than the benzodioxol. etc.

If swim is referring to x he usually refers to pure MDMA or MDA and not to pills to start with, cause illicit drugs are a completely differnt story by itself.

[Swimster]

^^yea good though. So one could be sure of the substance(MDMA).

[svenghali]

SWIM feels more sick after eating a double quarter pounder with cheese than the comedown from a capsule of 120mg pure MDMA. Hamburgers should be a controlled substance.

[Swimster]

^^Indeed. When it's pure. See, if the gov. allowed Legal production of
MDMA, than i dont believe we would have to even worry about bad SIDE-
EFFECTS from other drugs!