Ecstasy, youth culture, and drug education

This article ”Dancing with death”, is dealing with the danger caused by the drug Ecstasy, the street name for a psychotropic drug, which is extremely popular. Not only among youngsters who go to these psychedelic techno clubs, but also among people from different walks of life.

We´re at the Fridge – a tecno club in central London, where rave music grinds at an impossible beat, but to which youngsters keep perfect time. It´s a place where the young crowd feel united and loved. Certainly not without risk. For instance did Leah Betts collapse after taking one hit of Ecstasy. This girl unfortunately died, as many more do, according to Mark Gilman, director of research at Manchester´s Lifeline, a drug counselling center

Ecstasy has its roots in the United States of America, but was banned there in ´85. As we know from the drug-history, all drugs spread fast, so did ecstasy. It now has invaded Europe and Scandinavia to such an extent hard to imagine. Most E (the abbreviation for ecstasy) is now manufactured in Eastern Europe and then shipped west by Russian mafia networks, often controlled from the Netherlands.

Among those aged 15 to 25, E is the second most popular drug (after cannabis). The official British numbers on victims whose death is caused by E, are 53 in five years, (the article is written in ´95), with the oldest victim 24 and the youngest 16. Doctors, however, state the number at an average of 50 a year.