The history of MDMA, including a history of its scheduling in the US, is presented in this review, followed by a discussion of its recreational use, adverse events associated with ecstasy use and potential neurotoxicity. The review was apparently written for a general audience, with a focus on people interested in public policy. Strong points are its detailed history of the use of MDMA in therapeutic and non-therapeutic contexts and the section describing common adverse events. The weakest point of the review is the section describing the controversy over human neurotoxicity. More attention is given to the potential influence of politics in research funding than in describing research findings or evaluating them. There are a number of inaccuracies throughout the article in reporting on the effects and risks of MDMA in humans. For instance, it is no longer true that no study in non-human animals has found changes in behavior or cognitive function after MDMA administration. In general, the review is engaging, but the author appears to be unfamiliar with important research findings in the areas of subjective effects and potential neurotoxicity and is perhaps insufficiently critical of early, uncontrolled reports and clinical impressions of MDMA and MDA effects and therapeutic utility. This review can be seen as accurately reflecting the perspective of MDMA proponents circa 1990, but it unfortunately fails to reliably describe more recent research results.