About Drugs

Ecstasy

What is it?

Ecstasy's chemical name is 3,4, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, and is one of a large "family" of drugs. It has a stimulant ("upper") effect as well as being classed as a hallucinogen.

MDMA was first produced by the pharmaceutical company, Merck and Co, in 1914 as an appetite suppressant. The military experimented with it as a cheaper alternative to sending troops food during World War 1 and it has been used by psychotherapists, particularly those dealing with marital and relationship problems.

Its recent use is probably rooted in Chicago in the mid 1980s and the birth of House music at the city's Warehouse club and the Ibizan club scene from around 1987 onwards. The music was synthesised, repetitive, "trancey" and MDMA was found to enhance the experience - giving people the energy to dance for hours and feelings of empathy, warmth and togetherness.

It was partly responsible for the changing nature of both drug use and clubbing for young women - they became active in a drugs world which had really been dominated by men for some time. They also enjoyed being on a night out without the fear of alcohol-related violence and sexual threat. This was a scene where people just wanted to be with each other and share the experience.

It has been estimated that between half a million to a million young people take at least one ecstasy tablet every weekend. Alcohol was being outsold by soft drinks and bottled water as young people began to make an active choice about how they wanted to enjoy themselves.

The official response was the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act which targeted unlicensed outdoor raves, festivals and parties. The unofficial response was to report each and every ecstasy-related fatality under front page banner headlines. The "generation gap" was forced wider apart.

Ecstasy also made its way onto the football terraces and played a huge part in reducing the violence at games.

Cocaine

What is it?

Cocaine is a powerful but short-lasting stimulant that comes from the coca plant which is found mainly in Columbia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

The native South Americans, and particularly the Andean Indians, have sucked on the leaf of the coca plant for thousands of years. The leaves are said to contain virtually all the vitamins that are needed; help with breathing when working in the mountains; help with digestion; have aphrodisiac qualities and actors, singers and public speakers used to drink coca wine to relieve tired throats.

The use of the leaves, however, is very different to the use of the powder that is becoming more and more popular.

Coca was one of the original ingredients of Coca-Cola and was used in a large number of medicines and tonics during the 1800's. Arthur Conan Doyle's story book detective, Sherlock Holmes, was given a cocaine habit. Cocaine use in Britain was rare until quite recently, though controls were put on it during the First World War as there were fears, albeit false, of a cocaine epidemic amongst British troops. It wasn't until the mid-1970's and the rise of the rock music star that cocaine became a fashion amongst the rich and famous, though the 1990's was the time of the real increase in cocaine use.

The powder is cocaine hydrochloride, an odourless, bitter tasting, white, crystally powder which is the end result of a number of chemical processes. When it's sold on the street, the powder is about 40% pure, the rest is largely glucose.

Cocaine is usually "snorted" - sucked up the nose through a straw - after the small crystals have been chopped up into a fine powder. It can also be smoked as crack cocaine or "freebase" cocaine or injected.

Heroin

What is it?

Heroin is an opiate, a drug that can relieve pain and bring about sleep, which is produced from the opium found in the opium poppy. Opium is the first product of the poppy, followed by morphine - which is around ten times stronger than opium - and finally heroin - which, in its purest form, is around three times stronger than morphine.

Opium has been used for medicine and for recreation for thousands of years, and, as a medicine, was once as popular as aspirin is today. In Britain it usually came as Laudanum, a medicine of opium mixed with alcohol.

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the British were the world's biggest opium trafficker, even declaring war on China when the Emperor tried to ban the British from selling the drug to his country.

Morphine was used as a cure for opium addiction and heroin has been used as a cure for morphine addiction. Morphine has also been used, again in the nineteenth century, for recreational reasons and wealthy society women went as far as to have jewellery specially made to hold their morphine injecting equipment when at the theatre or other social gathering. There was the belief at the time that only smoking morphine would lead to a habit, not injecting.

Heroin and other opiates first came under control in the First World War as the government were worried about the effect it would have both on soldiers fighting in France and on people in Britain who were making weapons and ammunition.

Following a series of meetings about international narcotic control and the role of doctors, Britain set up a committee to look at the way forward in this country. The Rolleston Committee reported that they believed there was only one type of addict - middle-class, middle-aged, often from the medical profession and a morphine user. With about 500 such people in the country, the committee recommended that they be prescribed heroin or morphine and long-term if thought necessary.

This lasted until the late 1950's when the first new wave of heroin users became apparent. Another committee was set up to look at the problem and, in 1961, the recommendations of the Rolleston Committee were repeated. By 1965, however, the number of heroin users had grown markedly and a new system of specialist Drug Dependency Units soon opened up.

A second wave of heroin users arose during the mid-seventies as Britain was experiencing huge unemployment amongst the working class. The middle-eastern conflicts meant that more heroin became available as countries sought to get funds to buy arms and it was smokeable which made it more "acceptable" than injecting.

And the rest, so they say, is history. There are now an estimated 300,000 or so heroin dependents in England and Wales.

Powerd By Raresik

Drugs are bad ....don't take or sell them!!!