The way I see it is yes we do a lot more here in the uk, than probably any other country in the world, it is estimated we take around 500,000 a week though this figure has been thought to be somewhere near the 1,000,000, I did once read somewhere that all the pills taken in the uk in the year if they were saved up would be enough for everyone in the country to take one on new years eve.
As for the remarks made as to we have weaker pills in quality I disagree very strongly, in the uk, there are very few bunk pills or pills containing dangerous substances such as pma or dxm, the majority of pills you buy will be mdma/mda/mdea, because of the uk being so close in proximity to the netherlands it is fairly easy for pills to be imported, with the netherlands being one of the largest producers of mdma in the world and having a good market there this provides good quality pills to the uk at a cheaper price.
As with anything there is market trends, lasting
a period of months or even years, recently I worked out a five year cycle for pill quality which would have seen it go down hill in the last year, this will probably see a resurgence in pills becoming stronger and contaning more mdma, also pills containing mdma+methamphetamine are currently appearing in larger numbers.
The people in the uk have different attitudes probably because a lot of pill takers dont have access to the internet or the information which they need in order to regulate their usage, if you look at the amount of people on this board from the uk it is miniscule compared to that of the us and australia, yes the uk is smaller but I think if we take population as a percentage to the amount of member we will see its small.
Ecstasy has been widely used a a recreational drug in the uk since probably 1988, since this time is has been mainstream, I would think that only in the last few years in the us has it become mainstream, not much information was known back then about harm reduction/moderation so people have been taking large amounts of pills since then, perhaps if more information had been known then, people might not have taken as many, although we can still say now that the necessary information on long term damage is still relatively unknown.
With the prices being so cheap people are going to take more strength is irrelevent, when talking to a lot of americans i have realised that if they could get pills cheaper it is likely they would actually take more, people in the us who only take say 2 pills are month can maybe only afford to take 2 pills a month and to get the best from these 2 pills its best to space them out and pre and post load with 5thp and other supplements, whereas in the uk people can afford to do 5-10 everyweek.
If people have been taking pills longer then it is thought they will need to take more to get effects, so if the uk has been taking pills longer than other nations this will correlate with the amount people do. Different attitudes to life exist in the uk, the way i see it there isnt many oppurtunities in the uk, people do regualr 9-5 jobs monday to friday and therefore there whole life revolves around the weekend, things such as the weather and just the general way people are about life isnt very good, if people are offered a few hours of happiness of bliss away from this every weekend then they will take it.
Overall I think there are many reasons different attitudes exist, but i seriously doubt the claim we take more becasue they are weaker.
Nearly everyones attitudes are different in the uk, kids work out how many pills their paper round will buy them, even adults probably include drugs in their weekly budget, people take pills to do all sorts of things, ecstasy to a lot of people in the uk has moved away from whta it probably represents in other countries, why? because its been done, yes there are fresh faced kids every week going to a club and swallowing half a magic tablet that they have bought from a friend and having a life changing experiance but on the whole the pill generation of the early 90's have grown up, to the extent where they take more pills to get a different kind of buzz, all the people saying that after 4 they dont work are wrong they do, just in a different way.
Ecstasy is on the streets, in the schools, in the staff toilets....it might as well be in the shops, i doubt anyone in the uk would have too much trouble finding ecstasy, when i was younger i was told of strange men offering me strange looking tablets that resembled sweets, ive never seen this or known of anyone who has had this, by the time most kids reach 13 because of someone older brother they have smoked weed, then in the next few years they will learn there are other drugs, people sometimes say weed is the gateway drug, i dont believe this, how many people would have smoked weed without having smoked a legal cigarette first? so in england where smoking is very common and people can buy cigs very easily can all contribute to drug use.
Drugs in this country are part of our lifes, the music scene which is related directly to the drugs (without the music there wouldnt be the drugs) is popular, the dance culture is a life style which has crossed over and been seen in adverts for popular products, even with the use of these products appearing now on pills, everything relates back and ecstasy culture is probably on of the most revolutionary things to happen in mainstream society ever in britain.
I think with the current rethink on the law on cannabis and certain proposals that have been made about more scientific trials into the effects of mdma, will hopefully lead to the decriminalisation of mdma in the uk, with websites like this and hopefully less media moral panics we can see that attitudes even in the government are changing and possibly starting to accept that something are now part of so many peoples lifes that it is mainstream culture and the once norms and values which were used by our parents are know irrelvent and we are open to more diverse cultures.
I see a lot of people on this site that altough they know about moderation seem to forget about ecstasy culture, they seem to believe that back in the say was 1996, americans and australians have only recently embraced ecstasy culture as more mainstream, therefore attitudes will be different.
If anyone wants to see the amount of good pills we get in britain look at pillreports, compared to the american and australian sections there is much less bunk and dangerous pills, the quality will be higher because people have higher expectations, therefore the supply must meet the demand, pills in the uk started to go downhill in quality in 1991, this was when people realised they could capitalise on what was fastly becoming a very profitable business and make pills with cheaper ingrediants in, this was 3 years after ecstasy started to gain peoples attention, I would say what is happening now is the same thing 10 years later but in countries such as america and australia.
Bob
[ 04 January 2002: Message edited by: mc-bob-e ]
