This review, apparently written for an audience of substance abuse researchers and psychologists, briefly describes the subjective effects, pharmacology, adverse effects, and abuse liability of four substances the authors associate with dance events or nightclubs. The section on MDMA covers history, content of illicit ecstasy pills, subjective effects, mechanisms of action, adverse events, and associated behavioral risks. The abuse liability of ecstasy is not discussed, though sections on GHB, ketamine and methamphetamine contain sections on dependence and withdrawal. History and subjective effects are well-covered, and include a brief notation of past therapeutic use, and the discussion of subjective effects review both desired effects and side effects recorded in clinical trials. Information on the current content of ecstasy pills is also provided. These sections contain a few errors, such as the assertion that MDMA was scheduled in 1985 due to reports of MDMA neurotoxicity. In actuality, the reports involved in the scheduling hearings were of MDA neurotoxicity. Mild and severe adverse events are well described, though the authors create some confusion by discussing hyperthermia separately from other severe adverse events. However, statements discussing the possible long-term effects of ecstasy seem overstated and possibly incorrect, given the number of findings that now suggest the link between ecstasy use and psychiatric illness is tenuous (e.g. Daumann et al. 2002; Morgan et al. 2001). While studies finding differences in ecstasy users and controls may well support the existence of neurotoxicity in humans, these findings do not prove its existence. Since the authors address abuse liability of three of the four substances described, and since there are reports of ecstasy abuse and liability (see Cottler 2001; Jansen 1999; Schuster 1998; Topp et al. 1999), it is surprising that the authors do not have a section discussing the abuse liability of ecstasy. This review provides a brief and fairly decent, but not completely accurate, summary of information relating to MDMA and ecstasy.