It is a privilege to speak today before the U.S. Sentencing Commission on the issue of MDMA.

     I have been a child and adolescent psychiatrist for almost 20 years and am currently the Director of a large clinical program and training program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. I am also a Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine.

     I have studied and written articles on the phenomenon of substance abuse and misuse among young people, and have serious concerns about the dangers adolescents and young adult are exposed to. I have learned over time that young people respond best to hearing the truth, but that they do not respond well when they are barraged with information they do not trust to be the truth. In this era of high stakes Drug War politics, the dialogue has too often been dominated by misinformation and exaggeration, which has led to greater degrees of risk taking by young people.

      Unfortunately, this has particularly been the case with the phenomenon of "Ecstasy" use, which is often, but not always, the drug MDMA. I have studied and written on the issue of MDMA for over a decade, and was the first investigator to receive FDA approval to conduct a prospective research evaluation of adult subjects administered MDMA.

      Since I have only been provided with a very short time to speak, I am pleased that my recently published article in the journal Addiction Research (8:549-588, 2000) has been provided to the Commission. In this article I examined in significant detail the issues which I am only able to touch upon briefly this morning. I hope the members of the Commission take the time to examine my argument on the case of MDMA.

      Primarily, I am very concerned that the Commission has been provided scientific information, particularly about neuropsychiatric effects, which suffers from serious bias and inaccuracies. The Commission has been presented with a scenario that today's young MDMA users (of which there are millions) will be inflicted in 20 or 30 years with devastating degrees of neurologic damage. This is a gross exaggeration and misreading of the available data, as the case for so-called MDMA neurotoxicity is seriously flawed. Unfortunately, the NIDA funded research record on MDMA is an egregious example of the politicization of science, which not only clouds our understanding of the effects of MDMA but also undermines the credibility and integrity of the scientific process.

      Much of the NIDA promoted research record that has been presented to the Commission suffers from serious flaws in methodologic design, questionable manipulation of data and misleading and deceptive reporting in the professional literature and to the media. I will briefly mention several pertinent issues, though keep in mind that a more detailed analysis is provided in my article. It is important to note that the phenomenon and implications of MDMA neurotoxicity are far more controversial within the psychiatric and neuroscience communities than you have been told. Indeed, prominent neurotoxicologists, including James O'Callaghan of the U.S. C.D.C, have presented data demonstrating that some of the classic laboratory markers of neurotoxicity do not occur with MDMA. Furthermore, it is important to note that in laboratory models it has proved virtually impossible to demonstrate any long-term adverse behavioral sequelae in animals injected with repeated and extremely high dosages of MDMA. Then, there is the relevant clinical example of the weight reducing drug fenfluramine, which causes in laboratory animals virtually identical effects to the serotonin neurotransmitter system as are observed in so-called MDMA neurotoxicity. Over seveal decades, in Europe and the United States, tens of millions of people were administered fenfluramine daily, often for months and years, and yet during all this time neuropsychiatric disorders induced by these serotonin effects have never been demonstrated.

      Carefuly examining the record of human research with MDMA, particularly the NIDA funded studies of George Ricaurte, one observes a persistent pattern of poorly controlled studies, often with deliberate exclusion of vital data sets from published reports as well as unreported pre-selection biases in criteria used to recruit research subjects, which have led to grossly exaggerated and misleading claims in the scientific literature and in the media.

     A careful analysis of the MDMA research record provides a weak case for long-term dangers. Indeed, my own investigation, which was the first FDA approved study where MDMA was administered to human volunteers, found no evidence of short-term or long-term neuropsychological damage. In fact, many of our research subjects were notable for their impressive level of psychological and physical health, and successful functioning in the world.

     It is very unfortunate that the lavishly funded NIDA promoted position on so-called MDMA neurotoxicity has inhibited alternative research models which would better delineate the true range of effects of MDMA, including its potential application as a therapeutic medicine, particularly for clinical conditions non-responsive to conventional treatments, such as the severe psychological distress and existential alienation of people with end-stage medical illness, as well as other patients with refractory chronic post-traumatic stress disorder.

     As a child and adolescent psychiatrist who has studied and published in the area of substance abuse, I am very concerned about the welfare of our children and adolescents, and am well aware of the dangers they are exposed to in their daily lives. But, I strongly believe, that in spite of the best of intentions, our current drug policies have been ineffectual at best and grossly counter-productive at worse in terms of reducing the harmful consequences to young people. Therefore, I strongly encourage the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reject the temptation to escalate Drug War policies and consequences and to reconsider its position on the vexing case of MDMA.