Nikki was like many who went to rave parties. Hoping to escape her problems and have a good time, she planned to party through the night with several friends. One of them had a bottle of liquid ecstasy in his car, so they all decided to take some. Soon the drug started to take over. Nikki danced and danced and danced, pushing herself well beyond her usual limits. As one of her friends later said in a police report, “Nikki wasn’t feeling anything.” The next morning Nikki was dead. The cause: ecstasy poisoning.

“But that won’t happen to me,” you think. Maybe not, but do you really want to take the chance?

Here are 15 facts you should know:

1. Ecstasy is chemically similar to both stimulants and hallucinogens.
2. Ecstasy is also called MDMA.
3. Ecstasy was originally developed in Germany by the Merck pharmaceutical company in 1912.
4. In the 1950s, both the US Army and the CIA experimented with MDMA in psychological warfare tests.
5. Ecstasy today can contain a wide mixture of substances—from LSD, cocaine, heroin, amphetamine and methamphetamine to rat poison, caffeine and dog deworming substances.
6. Ecstasy most commonly comes in pill form but can also be injected and taken in other ways.
7. As of 2020, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that nearly 20 million people globally used ecstasy in the past year.
8. One study estimated about one in 70 ecstasy users will have a severe adverse health incident.
9. Mixed with alcohol, ecstasy is extremely dangerous and can be even more deadly.
10. Ecstasy smothers the natural alarm signals given out by the body.
11. In the week following the use of ecstasy, many people report depression, impaired attention and memory, anxiety, aggression, irritability, sleep disturbances, lack of appetite and concentration difficulties. Heart disease and impulsive behavior have been associated with regular use of MDMA.
12. Days and weeks after a person has taken the drug, their brain has not quite recovered to its normal state and a person can experience confusion, depression, sleep problems, drug cravings and anxiety.

 

13. Young people have died from dehydration, exhaustion and heart attack as a result of abusing ecstasy.
14. One has to continually increase the amount of the drug one takes in order to feel the same effects.
15. Users feel there is sometimes a need to use other drugs such as heroin or cocaine to help cope with the mental and physical pain that results after coming down from ecstasy.

Find out all the cold, hard facts about ecstasy by starting the online course at drugfreeworld.org/course.