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Good resource to educate the uninformed?

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tenshu2k

Bluelighter
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Nov 10, 2009
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MDMA or drugs in general aren't very common in my circle, in fact.. people think it's outrageous. Yet binge drinking (to obscene amounts), smoking, and other sometimes more dangerous things are done on a regular basis.

Does anyone have a link to a quick primer on mdma that shows that it's really not as dangerous as the media and mass public perceives it to be. I've read a lot and know the dangers and also how it compares relatively, but is there a quick summary out there that I can show my friends to help them understand?
 
I don't have any suggestions but I'd like to have something as well to show my friends. My friends enjoy drinking to excess but when they heard about MDMA they freaked out on me ... so any resources that have a quick summary would be awesome!
 
Here is one that may help.

http://www.drugequality.org/background.htm


and another..........

deaths1.gif
 
thanks. though i think total deaths isn't the greatest metric, considering amount of users (# of tobacco users vs. mdma users).

of course its difficult to get real numbers when it comes to illicit drug usage....

i think maybe illustrating the actual pharmacological effects of normal mdma usage, and comparing that to other commonly used drugs would be cool. haven't found anything yet though.
 
If they have time, Ecstasy Rising with Peter Jennings is a great 45 minute documentary on MDMA!

Aside from that, I refer people to erowid
 
Because it's not socially accepted, too many people will never accept the reality. Even if you present evidence and logic, things have been embedded in our brain since young kids, and kicking those thoughts aren't easy. We were all the same way once. The drug area is a tough area we all deal with in terms of spreading the news. It takes time, most people are skeptical at first, but over time the correct way of thinking usually comes out.
 
MDMA.net is a brilliant resource of information!

I can remember when I first started using drugs that everyone thought I was a 'druggie' injecting myself and stealing VCR's to fund my habit. Not many people understood about LSD and branded all drugs the same.

These days though if people really are interested in learning then all the information is a few clicks away.
 
tenshu2k said:
MDMA or drugs in general aren't very common in my circle, in fact.. people think it's outrageous. Yet binge drinking (to obscene amounts), smoking, and other sometimes more dangerous things are done on a regular basis.

Does anyone have a link to a quick primer on mdma that shows that it's really not as dangerous as the media and mass public perceives it to be. I've read a lot and know the dangers and also how it compares relatively, but is there a quick summary out there that I can show my friends to help them understand?
Click to expand...

Here's a BBC summary of work done by Professor David Nutt, a leading neuro-psycho-pharmacologist in the UK. The first graph shows the relative harms between various drugs both to the individual and to society. The third graph shows the break down of the kinds of harm each drug does.

The BBC did a nice 50 minute documentary contrasting different drugs, including MDMA and alcohol, based on that work by David Nutt.

Here's a slick three minute backgrounder on MDMA. It's about MDMA's history and myths.

Here's a primer on MDMA written by David Nutt's drug information charity.
 
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So I watched those videos, read those links, etc. I sent them to a friend of mind. She's a very close friend and I desperately want her to be accepting of using MDMA. I'm not trying to get her to use it (although if she wanted to, that's cool with me, whatever she'd like). I'm just trying to get her to realize that it's not some horrible thing.

She actually went and talked to a police officer (why a police officer? what is a police officer going to know?) about MDMA. The officer gave her some of the same information I gave her but also some really wrong information. Like that MDMA was sometimes cut with heroin. I tried to explain to my friend that it is a myth and how illogical it would be to cut it with heroin anyway. Still didn't believe me. Also the officer said stuff about it permanently damaging your brain. I explained that wouldn't happen unless it was used chronically and you overdosed all the time.

It's so frustrating! She sounds like a lost cause. I'm trying to give her some good information and she discards it because she claims it's just people making up information so that we all think M is safe.
 
Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but ABC did a great hour long special on ecstasy called Ecstasy Rising. Search it on YouTube, it is in 5 parts.

I am kind of shocked at how pro-ecstasy it is, especially since it is from a mainstream news source.
 
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llama112 said:
So I watched those videos, read those links, etc. I sent them to a friend of mind. She's a very close friend and I desperately want her to be accepting of using MDMA. I'm not trying to get her to use it (although if she wanted to, that's cool with me, whatever she'd like). I'm just trying to get her to realize that it's not some horrible thing.

[snip]

It's so frustrating! She sounds like a lost cause. I'm trying to give her some good information and she discards it because she claims it's just people making up information so that we all think M is safe.
Click to expand...

It's a pretty typical reaction. Many people find it easier to shout conspiracy or 'cherry-pick' their experts & facts than to revise their world view/belief system. See cognitive dissonance. You may also not be the right source for this information; you're probably part of the 'bad people that do drugs' group in her world view.

In all likelihood, her view on drugs and their harms is predominately formed by the prohibitionist propaganda spread by governments and tabloid hyperbole.

It's not directly related to the MDMA harm discussion, but if she likes authority figures, here's senior, conservative judge Jim Gray speaking out against the war on drugs.

Alternatively, check out Leap (Law enforcement against prohibition)
or The Vienna Declaration (basically 'doctors against prohibition')
 
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