GigsVT's Journal: Convenient "Error" favors Drug War

Remember that study linking MDMA (ecstasy) a while back that was used to help pass all that "Rave and Date Rape Drug" legislation?

Well, it was total bullshit, as the lab that did the study recently admitted.

"Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who last year published a frightening and controversial report suggesting that a single evening's use of the illicit drug ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson's disease are retracting their research in its entirety, saying the drug they used in their experiments was not ecstasy after all."

They claim they got their vials mixed up and used methamphetamine instead of MDMA. How convenient.

It wasn't deliberate

[elmegil]

If it had been deliberate, they'd never have come clean about the error. Like the monkey/smoke study that showed brain damage from smoking pot?

Re:It wasn't deliberate

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

So I suppose they're going to repeal the law then, because it was based on invalid research? Hah.

Re:It wasn't deliberate

[GigsVT]

Do you seriously believe that researchers, well educated biochemists, could not tell the difference between MDMA and methamphetamine? Yes, I know what MDMA is methyldioxymethamphetamine, and on some crude tests it causes similar positive results, but I find it hard to believe that this could go unnoticed.

If anything, it calls the competency of the researchers into serious question. What's the first thing you do when your system produces unexpected values that are way off base? You check the inputs.

They

Re:It wasn't deliberate

[TechnoLust]

I used to use MDMA. Never had any ill effects with it. I took 3 doses one night. I didn't die, and my brain didn't fry. (I didn't come down for almost 12 hours, but that was a DESIRED effect.) :-)

I only used it every couple of months, but I knew people who took it every weekend, Friday and Saturday. They mixed it with pot, alcohol, painpills, mescaline, shrooms, LSD, and anything else you can think of. The worst thing that happened to anyone was paranoia and severe munchies.

I have a BS in Chemistry.

Re:It wasn't deliberate

[elmegil]

If anything, it calls the competency of the researchers into serious question.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to appear to be defending them. This group apparently has a long history of pro-drug-war research, so of course this fit their biases. My point is that the amazing thing is that they came forward about it at all. Given how dubious that makes their position, it really must have been a stupid mistake rather than deliberate mirepresentation.

As far as not getting the results expected, you seem to assume