Random Trivia!

[Knight1979]

Where is the birthplace of the drug ecstasy?

(I'm watching some random drug documentary right now)

 

[Anonymous]

Where is the birthplace of the drug ecstasy?

(I'm watching some random drug documentary right now)

Hacienda

 

[Knight1979]

nope (-:

and let's be clear, the retail, illegal drug X (in other words not the original chemical making of MDMA or original prescription use) In other words when did it start showing up on the street and in the clubs.

 

[honkytonkman187]

NASA ?

 

[jimharri]

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenedioxymethamphetamine" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylened ... mphetamine</a>
Gives a pretty decent rundown on the historyof ecstacy.

 

[Joycee Banercheck]

I'd hazard a guess at Holland. I can't get on wikipedia at work coz the computers here are slower than a snail with cramp.

 

[jimharri]

I'd hazard a guess at Holland. I can't get on wikipedia at work coz the computers here are slower than a snail with cramp.

Copied and pasted from that Wiki page;

At the end of the 19th century, the Merck company of Germany was interested in developing substances that stopped abnormal bleeding. One of the most important compounds was hydrastinine. The plant from which it was isolated became rarer, and they started looking for alternatives. The scientific reports from the laboratory from 1911 and 1912 show that they wanted to use 3-methyl-hydrastinine as an alternative. They believed that this methylated analog of hydrastinine might be similarly effective. Drs. Walther Beck, Otto Wolfes and Anton Köllisch started on the project. In the newly developed synthetic pathway to 3-methyl-hydrastinine, MDMA was mentioned as one of several key precursors under the name of methylsafrylamin. In 1912 Dr. Anton Köllisch was requested to develop a patentable synthesis for 3-methyl-hydrastinine. The patent started on December 24, 1912. It is a procedural patent for compounds which are key precursors for therapeutics. MDMA was not the purpose of the patent. It was Dr. Max Oberlin (also at Merck) who in 1927 was the first person interested in the pharmacological properties of MDMA. Research on the substance was stopped for economic reasons, and the substance was buried in oblivion for some decades. In the 1950s the American and German armies were interested in psychotropic agents; MDMA was among the tested substances. Most probably for this reason, MDMA was re-synthesized at Merck. In his laboratory journal of 1952 Dr. Albert van Schoor describes how MDMA kills 6 flies in 30 minutes. In 1959 Dr. Fruhstorfer works on MDMA and similar psychotropics, his substance H671 was identified to be MDMA. The research on these substances led to the marketing of Reaktivin in 1960. Its chemical structure is not related to MDMA. The first scientific paper on MDMA appeared in 1960 and described a synthesis for MDMA. It is written in Polish by Biniecki and Krajewski and almost unknown. In 1978 Alexander Shulgin and David Nichols published the first scientific article on the drug’s psychotropic effect in humans.[13]

The U.S. Army did, however, carry out lethal dose studies of MDMA and several other compounds on animals in the mid-1950s. It was given the name EA-1475, with the EA standing for either (accounts vary) "Experimental Agent" or "Edgewood Arsenal."[14] The results of these studies were not declassified until 1969.
The MDMA molecule

MDMA first appeared sporadically as a street drug in the early 1970s after its counterculture analogue, MDA, became criminalized in the United States in 1970.[15] MDMA use, however, remained very limited until the end of the decade. MDMA began to be used therapeutically in the late-1970s after noted chemist Alexander Shulgin tried it himself, in 1977,[16] and subsequently introduced it to psychotherapist Leo Zeff. As Zeff and others spread word about MDMA, it developed a reputation for enhancing communication during clinical sessions, reducing patients' psychological defenses, and increasing capacity for therapeutic introspection. However, no formal measures of these putative effects were made and blinded or placebo-controlled trials were not conducted. A small number of therapists, including George Greer, Joseph Downing, and Philip Wolfson, used it in their practices until it was made illegal.

Although some therapists continued to conduct therapy illegally, MDMA was not legally given to humans until Charles Grob initiated an ascending-dose safety study in healthy volunteers. Subsequent legally-approved MDMA studies in humans have taken place in the U.S. in Detroit (Wayne State University), Chicago (University of Chicago), San Francisco (UCSF and California Pacific Medical Center), Baltimore (NIDA-NIH Intramural Program), and South Carolina, as well as in Switzerland (University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich), the Netherlands (Maastricht University), and Spain (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).[17]

Due to the wording of the United Kingdom's existing Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971, MDMA was automatically classified as a Class A drug in 1977.

In the early 1980s in the United States, MDMA rose to prominence as "Adam" in trendy nightclubs in the Dallas area, then in gay dance clubs.[18] From there use spread to rave clubs in major cities around the country, and then to mainstream society. The drug was first proposed for scheduling by the DEA in July 1984,[19] and was classified as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States from May 31, 1985.[20]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MDMA as "ecstasy" was widely used in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, becoming an integral element of rave culture and other psychedelic/dancefloor-influenced music scenes, such as Madchester and Acid House. Spreading along with rave culture, illicit MDMA use became increasingly widespread among young adults in universities and later in high schools. MDMA became one of the four most widely used illicit drugs in the United States, along with cocaine, heroin and cannabis.[citations needed] Today in the US, according to some estimates, only cannabis will attract more first-time users.[21]

 

[Knight1979]

In the early 1980s in the United States, MDMA rose to prominence as "Adam" in trendy nightclubs in the Dallas area, then in gay dance clubs.[18] From there use spread to rave clubs in major cities around the country, and then to mainstream society. The drug was first proposed for scheduling by the DEA in July 1984,[19] and was classified as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States from May 31, 1985.[20]

That's what I was looking for......apparently Bernie Sumner first tried it out in Dallas while on tour