One Similar Found to Cause Brain Damage in Rats : Drug MDMA Formally Banned, Effective July 1
The Drug Enforcement Agency formally issued an emergency ban Friday on the drug MDMA, popularly known as Ecstasy, saying it based its decision heavily on an unpublished study which found that a similar drug, already outlawed, caused brain damage in laboratory rats.
While members of the University of Chicago research team that conducted the study call the DEA’s decision “wise,” they said they were “uncomfortable” about assuming that MDMA would harm humans as severely as the other drug, MDA, did rats.
“I think (MDMA) really ought to be highly restricted until we know more about its toxicity in animals and humans,” said Dr. George Ricaurte, now of Stanford University Medical Center, one of the study’s five co-authors.
‘A Little Bothersome’
Nonetheless, Ricaurte said: “It’s a little bothersome that the DEA is citing unpublished data. A lot of data is submitted for publication but for reasons A through Z does not pass peer review and never sees the pages of a journal.”
MDMA has never been scientifically tested on humans and has not been tested extensively on animals. However, Dr. Charles Schuster, director of the University of Chicago’s drug abuse research center, said his team would begin testing MDMA on animals immediately.
However, he said the team is not hopeful that the drug--which contains both amphetamine and mescaline, a hallucinogen--would prove safer than MDA, its chemical cousin.
The rats in the study were given MDA doses three to five times higher than the drug’s standard “street dose,” according to Ricaurte. Some of the rats given large doses of MDA lost from 60% to 70% of the serotonergic nerve terminals in their brains, he said. The serotonergic system, which is also present in humans, plays a role in regulating sleep, mood and sexual activity.
High Potential for Abuse
The ban, which takes effect July 1, lists MDMA as a Schedule 1 controlled substance--a category for dangerous drugs with high abuse potential and no accepted medical use. It will be effective for up to 18 months while the federal government takes testimony on a permanent ban.
Gene R. Haislip, director of the DEA’s Diversion Control Office, told a news conference that his agency is under public and congressional pressure to take action against MDMA.
“The risks are apparent. The benefits are totally unproven,” Haislip declared. “If it has benefits, well, jolly--bring it on.”
Haislip said the use of MDMA has dramatically spread throughout the nation, primarily in California, Texas, Florida and the Northeast.
Zack Nauth reported from Washington and Miles Corwin from Santa Barbara.
