There are significant studies that say it messes with structures in the brain much more than other drugs which are less sensory and more just speedy.
Studies about messing up seratonin levels significantly and short-term memory loss (memory formation).
There weren't enough studies to reach any kind of big conclusion, but it does appear that it alters the brain more than most other drugs. This guy seems like he's pretty keyed up on that, so him it looks like a big threat.
Personally, I think that the amount of damage done by drugs is dominated by the kinds of knock-on effects you see. General physical deterioration, circulatory problems from IV use, infection/disease from needles, picked sores, and risks of misuse (dehydration, dangers of being comatose in a drug den, etc.), overdose all seem bigger concerns/risks to me.
If you put it the way he does, just talking about damage done to the brain, he is probably right. But I think he's missing the bigger picture.
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u/SamWhitewere you sucking this cat's dick before the video was taken?Aug 30 '14
The last time I checked on studies on MDMA (which admittedly was a few years back) there genuinely wasn't any consensus. Some of the early studies which raised alarms were significantly flawed with their controlling, for instance when the drug had last been taken (they just had a minimum of a month, so they were looking at people who'd taken it four weeks previously and the night previously and treating the results the same), other drugs taken during the same period weren't controlled for etc. I believe this is the study that had certain graphics of brain activity used in a 'don't take ecstasy' campaign. I couldn't find the actual study, but here's an article about a 2011 study that criticised the methodology of the previous studies and improved on it.
And there has to my knowledge been no long-term study as the drug only came to popularity in the late eighties, so we don't have anything like the body of evidence for something like cigarettes. There was a study on mice that showed that certain receptors in the brain would become malformed with sustained use, but even there no conclusion about what that could actually mean.
Generally brain damage as a term is used to mean actual measurable deterioration of the brain, IE it is symptomatic, and by symptoms I mean things like delusions, speech or movement impairment or intellectual disability. There's some evidence that MDMA long-term use can impair memory, but to call this brain damage would to my mind lie outside the usual use of the term.
90s after school specials. When I took health class we had to watch some about drug abuse and they all spoke as if MDMA was going to make your brain Swiss cheese.
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u/SamWhitewere you sucking this cat's dick before the video was taken?Aug 30 '14
Ah right. Think the UK missed that one. Here they focused mostly on dying instantly due to dehydration. Less inaccurate, though still quite dishonest in their execution.
I think I saw that exact interpretation of the side effects shown in an episode of Inspector Morse. I'd say recently due to deaths at high profile music festivals the hydration issue is coming to light but overall those specials were the first time so many people had heard of the drug that that impression stuck with them.
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u/SamWhitewere you sucking this cat's dick before the video was taken?Aug 30 '14
I remember it being made a big thing of when I was in school, and apparently the deaths that do result from MDMA almost always are from dehydration, with some from anaphylactic shock or other complications. However those deaths are statistically tiny when compared to usage, and as yet there isn't any solid consensus on long term health issues arising from use of the drug. All in all, it's one of the safer recreational drugs there is.
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u/SamWhite were you sucking this cat's dick before the video was taken? Aug 30 '14
What in the everloving fuck? That doesn't match up with either scientific studies or general perception. Where did he pull that one from?