Ecstasy
Peder Clark
October 27, 2022 DOI: 10.4324/9780429058141-11 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis |
|---|---|
| Topics | MDMA |
| Key points | Argues that ecstasy is a historically contingent intoxicant whose effects and meanings are shaped by specific cultural, spatial, and structural contexts rather than being universal. |
Abstract
First patented by Merck in the early twentieth century, and reinvented by American chemists in the 1960s and 1970s, MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) has been characterised as a good-time party drug with a dark side. Ecstasy, ‘E’, ‘X’ or ‘molly’ is connected in contemporary parlance with EDM mega-raves and the sometimes lethal consequences of over-consumption. This chapter suggests that historians and other critical drugs researchers might look beyond these binaries of hedonism and harm to develop more nuanced perspectives on ecstasy. It does so by providing a ‘synthetic history’ that moves beyond existing work which focuses either on the moral panics periodically associated with ecstasy or the apparently universalising affect that its consumers report. The first half of this chapter concentrates on the birth and reinvention of MDMA in Germany and the US, while the second half considers ecstasy’s arrival in Britain and entwinement with the ‘rave’ scene. By exploring some of the radically different experiences of the drug even within these relatively culturally homogenous contexts, it makes the case that ecstasy is and was a historically contingent intoxicant. Not only is this apparent from a pharmacological perspective (for example, ecstasy pills in the 2010s were consistently and considerably stronger than their 1990s antecedents), but the ‘hyper-specific’ spaces and scenes in which MDMA was consumed, alongside structural factors such as gender, race or class, mean that ecstasy’s characterisation as a universalising intoxicant deserves to be more closely interrogated.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on MDMA, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Differences Between the Mechanism of Action of MDMA, MBDB, and the Classic Hallucinogens. Identification of a New Therapeutic Class: Entactogens | 1986 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Background and Chemistry of MDMA | 1986 | Historical analysis | |
| The origin of MDMA (ecstasy) revisited: the true story reconstructed from the original documents* Original documents in Merck's historical archive in Darmstadt, Germany, years 1900–1960 | 2006 | Historical analysis | |
| Distinct neural mechanisms for the prosocial and rewarding properties of MDMA | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How could MDMA (ecstasy) help anxiety disorders? A neurobiological rationale | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 9
- Differences Between the Mechanism of Action of MDMA, MBDB, and the Classic Hallucinogens. Identification of a New Therapeutic Class: Entactogens Journal of Psychoactive Drugs October 1, 1986
- The origin of MDMA (ecstasy) revisited: the true story reconstructed from the original documents* Addiction July 8, 2006
- MDMA: Nonmedical Use and Intoxication Journal of Psychoactive Drugs October 1, 1986
- An Exploration of the History and Controversies Surrounding MDMA and MDA Journal of Psychoactive Drugs September 1, 2001
- Rediscovering MDMA (ecstasy): the role of the American chemist Alexander T. Shulgin Addiction August 1, 2010
and 4 more in the library