Over the past decade, the widespread use of ‘recreational’ drugs has been increasingly acknowledged. In a burst of revelation last year, politicians of various hues confessed to having used illegal substances—in their younger days. The police tell us that a substantial proportion of certain crimes are drug-related, and there is debate on whether the laws on drug use need to be modified....
Reactions to claims of near-death experiences (NDE) range from the popular view that this must be evidence for life after death, to outright rejection of the experiences as, at best, drug induced hallucinations or, at worse, pure invention. Twenty years, and much research, later, it is clear that neither extreme is correct.
Since the late 1980s there have been a number of reports about the complications associated with using the designer drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or 'ecstasy'. Although this drug has been widely abused in the past, the potentially fatal complications have arisen recently mainly due to the circumstances of its use at all-night dance sessions or 'raves'. A combination of direct...