FREE ESSAY ON THE DRUG MDMA

THE DRUG MDMA

The drug MDMA (ecstasy) is very well known, however it's long term, and cognitive
functioning effects are not. The main purpose of this study was to "establish if users
and previous users of MDMA exhibit impairments in more basic level cognitive processes
such as working memory functioning, information processing speed, anxiety and arousal"
(Wareing, Fisk, Murphy, May 00, 2). In past studies of MDMA, a lot of information
regarding its effects has been established yet so much more is still unclear. Topics such
as MDMA's relationship to arousal levels and whether the mood and cognitive functioning
impairments are long term are either unstudied or virtually unknown. These topics being
very important it was decided that a study should be performed. 
With these ideas in mind, the experimenters focused on two main hypotheses. The first
included that MDMA users would be less effective in the random letter generation task.
This task studies a persons central executive functioning. The second hypothesis was
saying previous, current and non-users arousal levels would differ greatly and users
would have the highest anxiety levels. 
The method the study was done was experimental. 30 individuals participated in all and
were divided into 3 categories users, non-users and previous users. Users defined as
currently using MDMA, non-users as never using MDMA and previous users were defined as
having quit the drug for at least 6 months. There were equal numbers of males and females
in each of the 3 groups. The independent variables in this study were the user group and
previous user group. This would determine the short-term effects on users and long-term
effects on previous users. The control variable was the group of non-users. The dependent
variable would be the experiments performed, or more, the gist of the experiments. These
experiments were designed to measure central executive measures, background measures,
information processing speed, arousal and anxiety. The study included questionnaires,
oral questions and simple tasks. The experiments were performed individually on each
participant. 
An important note that was found was that all users, both previous and current, were
taking at least one other psychoactive drug in addition to MDMA. This might very well be
a factor in all experiments performed. The random generation task is designed to place a
constant strain on the central executive and keeps demanding the brain to work and think.
Since users and previous users scored less than non-users, it's safe to assume MDMA users
have trouble in coping with high levels of cognitive demand. Even previous users have
trouble with this test showing that this impairment persists even when you quit taking
MDMA. This study also found through the information processing speed test that MDMA users
are able to process information as quickly as non-users just not as accurate by a
significant amount.
In general, the idea the authors were aiming at was that users, or previous users, would
score lower on the experiment compared to the non-users. Perhaps the experiment was not
as well designed to fit this particular expectation. One of the hypotheses was that users
would score less than non-users in a random letter generation task by a significant
amount. This was both proven and not proven with the results. The authors found that in
the one second production test they were right and non-users did significantly better
than users or previous users. On the other hand, this was only a third of the test, there
were also 2 second and 4 second tests where non-users did score better but by very little
and by no means significant. The other hypothesis was regarding anxiety and arousal
saying that with all three groups would differ significantly. This one they couldn't have
guessed better, between all three groups they found there was a significant difference
with both anxiety and arousal. 
The study on MDMA and its effects was very inconclusive. The gist of the whole study was
to find how a certain type of drug, in the short and long run, affects its consumers. The
participants who were studied and compared to non-users all confessed to using at least
more than one drug besides MDMA. This brings questions like what kind, how much, how
often and how do these drugs on these patterns mixed with MDMA effect you in the long
run. Perhaps it's not even the MDMA that affected these individuals. The study was also
made up of 30 participants using the "snowball" effect to recruit them. There are a lot
of conclusions being drawn from only 30 people in the same basic area. What if education
in that particular environment was slow to begin with? The authors should have expanded
their research to other places and more people. Before I found out the results I figured
that taking drugs would slow your brains functioning down or impair it. It came out to be
true so there was no huge surprise with this study. I knew how it affected people in the
short run especially in current users but I didn't know that it persisted even after you
quit. This did not surprise me in the least bit it more confirmed a belief. 
Bibliography
Wareing, M; Fisk, J; Murphy, P
"Working memory deficits in current and previous users of MDMA ('ecstasy')" British
Journal of Psychology, Vol. 91 Issue 2, p 181