ecstasy use in the u.k

[adzket]

this information comes from the mixmag (leading music, dance ,club-culture magazine uk) big drugs survey which is used by clubbers, police and policy makers the world over. this survey is done every year and filled in by its readers. (so is by no meens 100% coclusive but results and storys are intersting).

ecstasy, nearly all of you have had e in the last year, but do you know what you're taking?

"it's out of control", said ecstasy godfather alexander shulgin back in december. "its potential as a medicine has been badly jeopardised." he was bemoaning ecstasy's hijacking by rave culture in the 80s.

one of psychedelia's legendary chemists, shulgin rediscoverd e in the 70s while reading a 1912 german chemistry paper. it had potential as treatment for depression, but when it was used for stranger-hugging / podium-hogging mentalism, law enforces around the world took a less enthusiastic approach.

if you're one of the 99% of our surveyed readers who have used e in the last year or the 84% who used it within a month of answering the survey, your weekends are the offspring of shulgin's experiments. on average you buy 21 pills at a time at £2.50 per pill and the longest session you've had is a three day humdinger.

in 2005 readers complained about the drop in the quality of ecstasy. but despite reports that dutch ecstasy is the strongest it's ever been, the number of raids on factories elsewhere suggest that dutch exports don't rule the market like they once did. but as the quality of pills dipped in the uk, e takers have found alternatives.

in 2005 mixmag spotted batches of pills made with artifical sweetner, and dyes laced with lsd. one batch even contained cake decorations. bzp, a drug from the same camp of amphetamines as speed, has become more popular as a substitute for mdma in pills. a combination of bzp and drugs from the piperazine family (knowen as pep pills) has become one of the biggest selling legal highs that imitates ecstasy.

*what you take in a session.....
4.5 the average number of pills per session
10 the greatest number of pills you've taken per session.

*how many of your friends take e?
1. none 0.1%
2. less than half 25%
3. about half 27%
4. more than half 28%
5. all or nearly all 21%

*in the past year have you physically collapsed because you took ecstasy?
1% said yes.

*the design most frequently related to collapse : mitsubishi.