Culture - Has MDMA been done an injustice by its association with the rave movement?

[PingoTango]

I was just now watching an interesting documentary about the origins of the rave scene, and the combined socio-cultural factors in the UK at the time that gave rise to this movement. It's very interesting and hosted on YouTube, and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmCwiqa3Tro&feature=related

Anyway, as mentioned in said documentary, one of these factors was, undoubtedly, this relatively new substance which had landed on the shores of the UK from the US: 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, called Ecstasy by those who truly know her. It is certain that, without this wonderful molecule and feelings of openness, empathy and unconditional love and acceptance it imparted upon the millions of ravers happy to experiment with it each weekend, the rave scene would never have reached the scale it did whilst retaining it's trouble-free vibe and going largely un-noticed by the authorities.

Until, that is, the press caught on...

MDMA became public enemy no.1 overnight, and Ecstasy became a household name - forever associated in the minds of the general public with this rave "nuiscance". Most uninformed people now view ecstacy as nothing more than a party drug, turning little Timmy and Jane from Sunday school's finest into sweaty, gurning, oversexed monsters, and killing the occasional straight A student for good measure, and are completely unaware of it's safety when taken in reasonable doses, and it's myriad of medical uses.

(this, as we all know, is largely down to public misinformation RE safety precautions to be taken whilst taking MDMA - see Leah Betts, and the lack of proper controls over the manufacture of this drug).

My question is this - has Ecstasy's relatively recent surge in popularity done it a disservice? If it had never caught on the way it did with the ravers of the late 80s/early 90s, and to a lesser extent, the disco heads and club kids of the 70s/80s, and had remained within the obscure realms of the academic and the psychonaut, would it now be taken more seriously as a drug with genuine therapeutic/medicinal/"non-recreational" (hate that term) uses? Would we now be seeing MDMA-containing anti anxiety meds available to the public?

Or am I just putting a little too much faith in human nature?

I dunno, it's late and my typist has run out of weed. Maybe we should both just hit the hay.