Drugs & Culture: Has ecstasy gone ‘mainstream’?

Following last week’s news report on the increasing popularity of ecstasy across Australian culture, inthemix takes a closer look at the new research that indicates the drug has gone ‘mainstream’. Titled Containing ecstasy: analytical tools for profiling an illegal drug market, the report was funded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund and it was unveiled at a recent national drug conference on the Gold Coast. Noted academics Greg Fowler and Stuart Kinner from the University of Queensland were responsible for putting it together, with help from Leigh Krenske of Crime and Misconduct Commission in the state.

Bringing together data from a number of different sources, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the National Drug Strategy Household Survey that is conducted every three years, as well as from its own research and interviews with consumers and dealers across the country, it claims that the number of Australians over the age of 14 who have ever tried ecstasy has climbed to around 1.2 million. More than 550,000 people had used ecstasy within the last 12 months in 2004, and levels are also rising dramatically – the proportion of Australians who tried ecstasy shot up from 3.1 per cent in 1993 to 7.5 per cent in 2004. And looking at data collected by the UNODC, Australia is believed to be one of the highest per capita ecstasy consuming countries in the world.

Containing Ecstasy attempts to construct a profile of the typical ecstasy user in Australia. According to the report there is a clear link with the use of the drug to age and gender. “The relationship between age, gender and the prevalence of ecstasy use indicates that young men aged between 20 and 29 years are the group most likely to report ecstasy use,” it says, pointing out that it’s least prevalent among those aged 40 or over. Not surprisingly, ecstasy use seems to drop off sharply when individuals reach certain milestones in their life. “Some of the life events that can affect the frequency of ecstasy use include marriage, career advancement, or… starting a family.”

If there’s still any perception in the wider society of ecstasy users being unemployed dropkicks, Containing Ecstasy claims that reality is markedly different. The evidence shows that users tend to be young, well educated and either employed or involved in full-time study. This point is illustrated with an excerpt from one of the subjects who was interviewed for the report, in this instance with a female user who hails from Brisbane. “It‘s not the dole bludgers that take it… with ecstasy it‘s just a totally different ball game. Usually it’s people with really good jobs, like their parents think they’re really good and it’s all hidden, they don‘t look like users.”

In response to this quote, the report claims that her statement, “...reinforces the idea that ecstasy consumers are socially and financially secure. They are capable of managing their consumption and remaining highly functional. There is a general perception among ecstasy users that ecstasy use does not necessarily lead to severe health and social problems.”

And, if there is still the perception out there that ecstasy is restricted just to nightclubs and dance parties, the research is telling of something different entirely. The impact of ecstasy still weighs heavily in the dance scene, but that’s far from the only section or subculture of society that it has permeated and the reality is a lot more complicated. “While there is evidence to suggest that ecstasy consumers can be generalised to a certain degree, it is important to acknowledge that ecstasy is consumed by a diverse array of people in a range of social contexts.”

If you think that the only place ecstasy is being consumed in Australia is in nightclubs, you’d be very wrong. According to the report, ecstasy is used in a diverse array of public and private locations. While the most common place that respondants report using of the drug is still nightclubs, at 77.3 per cent, it’s followed closely by private parties at 57.2 per cent, at the home of friends at 56.8 per cent, in their own home at 51.1 per cent and at one-off dance party events at 50.7 per cent. But it gets even wackier than that: 6.6 per cent of respondents reported using ecstasy in restaurants or cafes, while 7 percent have used it at work!

In terms of use becoming ‘mainstream’, Containing Ecstasy argues there is increasing evidence to suggest the drug increasingly being normalised and accepted as an ordinary part of everyday life for many Australians. “Representations of ecstasy consumers are increasingly found in mainstream culture, and subcultural codes and signifiers of use are frequently used by the advertising industry to sell products to the general community,” the report says. The drug’s increasing prevalence means also that more and more people are becoming exposed to it, either directly or indirectly.

“The regular use of ecstasy is perceived to be as acceptable as cannabis and more acceptable than the regular use of other illegal drugs. It is rarely associated with a ‘drug problem’ by the general community,” the report claims. The biggest factors emphasised as responsible for this normalisation include the popularity of use; the way in which it is consumed (swallowing a pill is a little more socially acceptable than injecting or smoking, for instance); the perceived benefits of ecstasy use (identified in the report as “enhanced closeness/bonding/empathy, enhanced communication/talkativeness/sociability and enhanced mood”) and the fact that it’s become associated with the social codes of a number of different subcultures (again, stretching well beyond the clubbing world).

Paul Dillon has his say.

Paul Dillon from Drug & Alcohol Research Australia is one of the country’s most outspoken authorities on drug use, and inthemix spoke with him about some of the assertions found within Containing Ecstasy. Dillon claims that usage trends in Australia are bucking the figures seen in the rest of the world. “If you go to Europe you’ll see that ecstasy use is on the decline, while in the States the use is stable and declining slightly. But here we continue to rise; we’ve almost quadrupled in the past decade in terms of use, and that’s definitely a significant increase.”

He also supports the assertion that ecstasy is no longer strictly the domain of clubs. “I don’t think that’s anything new,” he says. “There’s a range of different ways and situations in which people use the drug, of course it remains very closely linked to the dance scene… But there are many other groups who use the drug as well.” Dillon affirms that while the long-term consequences of ecstasy use still remains “the great unknown,” he identifies some of the short-term consequences as what he terms the “social harms.” By that he means, “the effect it has on relationships, the effect it has on your work or your education, your finances. Those are the sort of things that impact on most ecstasy users. But we don’t talk about that enough.

“This is a drug where, for many users, it has quite a significant impact in the days after you use it. You’re feeling down, you’re feeling tired, you’re feeling lethargic and you can feel depressed. And what happens is that people simply don’t go to work, they don’t function as well as they normally would. If you’re a regular ecstasy user you could miss work on Monday for two or three weeks in a row, and there is research that shows that is what’s happening to many users.”