This programme contains some strong language
Ecstasy has become one of Britain's most notorious drugs.
The messier they look, the better time they're having.
No other illegal substance has had such an effect on fashion, music
and how we party.
Everyone's moving, and...
and doing that all night, all night.
20 years on from its acid house heyday, E and its crystal form MDMA...
Oh! ..still rank in the top three most popular illegal drugs in the UK.
Cos it's perfect.
It's MDM-amazing!
But for some people, ecstasy has caused agony.
They said to my mum and dad, "I think you might need to sort
"the funeral arrangements out for your daughter". Chin-chin.
We follow two ecstasy users over one night,
and journey inside the body and the brain to find out how the drug creates its highs...
and its lows.
We've gone over the mountain, and now we're on our descent.
With access to cutting edge science, we find out why ecstasy is known as the love drug.
Will you give me a hug? Thank you, darling.
It's a drug that has changed some lives irreversibly.
We were just doing MDMA to be close.
Killer chemical or the ultimate feelgood high?
This is the inside story of how ecstasy works.
Every year in the UK, over half a million people use ecstasy.
It's become a big feature of British club culture,
despite possession carrying a maximum prison term of seven years.
Recently, many users have swapped pills for the crystal form
of the drug, named after its main active ingredient, MDMA.
It's MDMA that's responsible for the unique combination
of energy and empathy that have become the drug's hallmarks.
Katie is a 20-year old student in her first year at university.
She's been an occasional ecstasy user for four years.
So this is the first time I took it, MD.
I can't believe that I'm actually showing this to the camera.
We were all too young to be going out clubbing,
so it was just getting messy in a park.
We researched it a bit actually, to start with.
I was on Google, a bit scared.
Did half each to start with. We were timing it.
Was convinced it wasn't working and listened to a tune on my mobile phone
that I loved, and the next thing I know, I was buzzing.
It was just, I guess, pure ecstasy.
Even that horrible little park that we were sat in was beautiful.
Tonight, Katie plans to take MDMA at a drum and bass night.
Oh, it's a lovely big gram. Just got this off a guy.
You know, went to see a man about a dog.
Oh, God!
She wraps the MDMA in cigarette papers to make what are called bombs.
I don't like the idea that I'd have to keep taking out a packet in a club.
It'd be a lot more chance that I'd get caught doing it that way.
Katie takes MDMA or ecstasy on average once or twice a month.
It's not the only thing I'm into.
I do it now and again, but they do accentuate experiences and stuff,
so, yeah, I could easily live without them,
but while they're there, I'm going to use the resources that we got.
Oh, God, my hair is awful.
I don't know why I care so much, because the state of me later on, I won't give a shit.
I guess that's why I try to make such an effort before I go out,
cos I know how downhill it's going to go, visually.
After the first drop, I'm going to be in bits.
Oh. I'll open that one last.
I can't wait to go out and get messy!
Katie doesn't usually drop her first bomb of MDMA until she's just about ready to hit the club.
That way, she hopes she won't appear too high at the door.
I've got a little bomb here, cos I don't want to overdo things.
Chin-chin!
Whether it's taken as a pill or as crystals, most users of ecstasy take the drug orally.
It starts to disintegrate into the stomach, and by the time it reaches the small intestine,
the particles are small enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream.
The drug is pumped to the heart and lungs and then to the rest of the body.
At the brain, the molecules are carried through tiny capillaries
whose walls are thick enough to protect the brain from most impurities.
But MDMA molecules can slip through the capillary walls and cross into the brain.
After a bomb of MDMA and a couple of cans of cider, Katie's starting to feel in the party mood.
I don't really know if I'm coming up,
but if I'm pretty bloody honest, I'm feeling pretty fantastic.
It's a jumble gym, it's the jumble gym tonight, lads.
MDMA, the main active ingredient in ecstasy, was first synthesised
in Germany in 1912 and was originally intended to be used as a blood-clotting agent.
By the 1980s, MDMA had seeped out of the laboratory
and was being used recreationally in nightclubs in the USA and Ibiza.
Its euphoric effects earned it the new name ecstasy.
The new club drug was banned,
but this did little to dent its popularity.
By the early '90s, over half-a-million pills were being taken
every weekend in the UK, at legendary clubs like Shoom, The Trip and the Hacienda.
Its illegal status meant there was no regulation over how the drug was made and what was put into it.
John Ramsey is an expert on what's in ecstasy.
He runs a drugs database and has collected hundreds of ecstasy pills over the past 20 years.
This is an ecstasy tablet that's got the Mitsubishi logo on.
Many pills have street names that reference famous brands,
and tests have shown a huge variation in their quality.
I'm sure people do believe that if they buy the same brand marking, they'll get the same product.
But of course, the amount of drug varies significantly from tablet to tablet.
At the 2009 Glastonbury Festival, John Ramsey's tests
on confiscated pills showed just 8% contained MDMA.
Today, he's testing three different pills with the same logo
to find out if they are the genuine article.
So this one here is forming the colour and these two aren't, so this one has MDMA in.
They're all tablets with a Mitsubishi logo on, but only
one of them contains the active drug that people actually want.
The trend at the moment is very much for pills not to contain MDMA at all,
and to contain CPP, which is what I expect one of these contains.
and I suspect the other one is probably plaster of Paris, which is just a complete rip-off.
CPP is a fairly nasty compound.
It causes headaches, it makes people feel nauseous and in fact,
CPP's even been used experimentally to induce migraine.
It's a very unpleasant compound.
What happened recently, I think, is people have lost confidence in
ecstasy tablets so you've seen the appearance of MDMA in crystal form,
and I think the general idea that crystals are pure caught on.
But just because the drug is pure, doesn't necessarily make it safe.
Safety is difficult, because we know that MDMA kills people.
At the height, probably 40 or 50 people a year were dying from MDMA.
We've seen very few, if any, deaths from CPP.
So it's probably no more dangerous, it just isn't what you expect.
19-year-old Robert has just successfully completed his A-levels
and has been enjoying the freedom of his gap year.
This has been the longest summer of my life.
It's been incredible, really. I mean, it started, you know,
with festivals and parties early on in the summer when I'd just finished
my A-levels and I'm finally letting my hair down after two years of quite hard work.
Robert discovered MDMA when he was 17, and takes the drug every few weeks at raves.
I don't want to go so far as to say that it's changed, like, my life,
but it has definitely had some sort of an impact on my outlook on life.
As a result of having more open and frank and honest conversations with my friends when I'm on the drug,
it's enabled me to be more open and honest with my friends when I'm off the drug.
Shall we call this number up? Yeah.
Tonight, Robert and his mates are planning to go to a secret Halloween rave.
The details of the party location are released on a mobile phone
answering service just two hours before the event starts.
'Tonight's party is at 80...Street'
What?
What station? Battersea Park rail, Vauxhall.
MAN: Are they legal, these parties?
I think... Are they...? They're topsy-turvy.
The police can't shut them down unless they've got a warrant.
Do you buy the MDMA when you get in the rave?
Nah. I've already got it. THEY LAUGH
This is half a gram.
How much did that cost? £20.
Everyone is on the same sort of level and a lot of them are on acid and things like that.
We're all just happy, happy hippies.
'The first time I took it, it was at this mansion party.'
I was running around, sort of...
filled with momentum and energy and full of pep and fire.
And I felt like I wanted to talk to everyone about everything,
and I felt much more interested in what other people had to say.
I felt like my views were a lot more worthwhile.
'It was a very, very interesting experience. Lots of fun.'
Shoes are off. Stripping!
Robert doesn't usually dress up at raves,
but as it's Halloween, he gets into the spirit.
He looks like the dude from The Big Lebowski.
It's a bit of a transformation, I'll admit.
It's a pretty strange location.
It looks to be like three or four different rooms connected by a big joint car park.
It's sort of ridiculous how often you get offered drugs.
Every fourth person you pass says, "MDMA, ket, speed, pills?"
"MDMA, acid, ket, speed, pills, weed, skunk..." Anything.
Anything you want, you can get here. It's sort of absurd.
After half an hour in the rave, Robert feels settled enough for his first hit of MDMA.
He crushes the crystals into a powder, so he can sniff the drug.
When MDMA is snorted, it rockets up the nostril and coats the nasal walls.
MDMA molecules are absorbed through the nasal membrane directly into capillaries on the other side.
Within 20 minutes, the blood has carried the MDMA around the body
and into the brain, where it's ready to start work.
Snorting MDMA is not a particularly pleasant experience.
The crystals are quite large and it hurts a little,
but it helps you feel the effects faster.
I've only just got here and I'm just sort of getting the party off to a flying start, I suppose.
I mean, it hasn't hit me yet, and once it does, I'll be talking at
a mile a minute and making friends with everyone you see there.
Complete strangers, but it'll be the empathy kicking in.
It's been over 45 minutes since Katie took her first MDMA bomb,
and signs of its effects are becoming apparent.
This is going to be such a good night. I know, I can feel it.
But I love you. I love you too.
The key to how we act and feel lies deep inside the brain,
where millions of nerve cells communicate by sending electrical messages through networks.
Where one nerve meets another, there are tiny gaps.
Here, the messages are relayed by the release of chemicals.
In one network, ecstasy disrupts how these chemical messages are sent,
and this can create intensely sociable feelings in the user.
I don't feel cold any more.
I'm just feeling full of love, full of warmth...
Once ecstasy gets inside the brain, in the gaps between nerve cells,
it releases the chemical serotonin, which affects our mood.
Serotonin latches on to receptors on the neighbouring nerve cell,
starting a chain reaction of feelgood messages.
Normally, excess serotonin is reabsorbed into the nerve cell
that released it, but MDMA stops this process happening.
It means serotonin builds up in the gap,
and the loved-up messages increase.
I wish every single person on the street was my best friend.
Can you give me a hug?
And they will be by the end of the night, believe you me.
Will you give me a hug?
Wheeeeeeey!
Let's get in there and skank all over, babe, to some dirty dubstep beats.
There's definitely a connection when you do it with a good group of people.
It really is "I love you!", cos you love everything, like nothing could be better.
At the time, anyway, you think you're making these lifelong bonds.
I've made friends with about 25% of the club,
but we've still got a long way to go. Long way.
People are just on the level in there. Everyone's loving everything.
And everyone's good and I'm good and you're good and we're good.
It's perfect, and it's MDMA-zing!
The loved-up experience is heightened because the flood
of serotonin also triggers the release of a hormone called oxytocin from a gland in the brain.
Oxytocin is known as the "cuddle chemical", and is naturally released
to help human bonding, for example, after sex.
It could almost be equivalent to a post-orgasmic bliss,
as some people have described it.
Even in the wild environment of the rave, perhaps there is this bonding happening between strangers.
I know the kind of communal spirit it is when everyone's on the same drug
and everyone's loving something the same way. It's special.
And a lot of people there are loving it the same way, trust me.
Whilst users have long raved about ecstasy's ability to create empathy,
scientists still know relatively little about how this effect of the drug works.
At the University of Chicago, scientists have been granted
permission to observe recreational users under the influence of MDMA.
31-year-old Svet has volunteered to take part.
He's been an occasional user for around ten years.
Every time is different. Last time, it was just me and my girlfriend.
The time before, it was a birthday party of a friend of mine and it was just purely dancing.
Scientists hope that if they can learn more about why ecstasy creates empathy,
it could show how the drug might be used as a prescription medicine, for example, for people in therapy.
Morning. How are you?
Good to see you. I'm going to give you your capsule now.
There's two capsules.
Svet is given 95mg of MDMA,
although he is unaware if this is the real thing or a placebo.
If the participant knew, they might have, sort of, expectations.
They know that, you know, maybe receiving a stimulant
is supposed to make them sort of excited and upbeat.
But an hour after taking the drug, Svet is pretty sure he knows what he's taken.
Well, I believe I get some ecstasy today for free.
You all right? Quite delightful.
Quite delightful? OK.
In his first task, Svet is shown pictures of people with different facial expressions.
For each one, he must decide if the expression is happy, sad, angry, fearful or neutral.
The exercise is designed to find out if ecstasy increases or decreases
our ability to recognise emotions in others.
We would like to see really whether it increases the ability to, kind of, discriminate
more finely tuned emotions or whether, if a fearful face comes up,
are they good at recognising that that's actually a fearful face, or do they mistake it for anger?
Results so far suggest that ecstasy actually decreases
the user's ability to read negative emotions in others.
This could be why they are able to socialise more confidently after
taking the drug, because they are oblivious to the negative emotional cues others may be giving off.
All right, so this is your last task.
Basically, you're going to see a series of photos of different people,
and it's going to ask you to rate those faces on how you feel about them
for a variety of, kind of, adjectives. OK.
In this task, Svet must rate each person he sees on how attractive,
intelligent and trustworthy they look.
I think that it would increase empathetic feelings, kind of pro-social feelings.
So we would expect that it would increase feelings of trustworthiness,
of friendliness, possibly attractiveness.
So not only does MDMA make users miss negative emotional cues in others,
experts believe it could also lead them to apply positive attributes to people they meet.
Having completed all his tasks,
Svet has a craving to test the effects of MDMA in a more familiar environment.
It's really weird to take something here in a small room.
For me personally, this is a party drug.
If there is a house, I would dance, like some frisky dance,
with a lovely lady.
I want to dance my ass, though.
At the rave in south London, the line of MDMA Robert took earlier is starting to kick in.
It is hitting me a bit now.
I feel more forced to move to the music that I hear.
You sort of feel full of energy once it's hit you.
I mean, they call it rolling in America, and that's almost what it feels like.
You're sort of rolling with the momentum that it gives you.
The classic view that people have of someone that's taken ecstasy is
someone dancing all night in a nightclub, and if you ever look
at old footage of clubs in the early '90s, people are gurning away,
doing their "big fish, little fish, box" dances.
MUSIC: "We Call It Acieed" by D Mob
Ecstasy's reputation as the drug that makes you dance was sealed
during the acid house scene of the late '80s and early '90s.
People who hated dance music dropped a pill and started to like it.
At its height, there were over 100 illegal outdoor raves every weekend,
some attracting up to 20,000 revellers.
dancing for days at a time.
The dancing was very visual, it was very hands, you know?
It was like... you know,
it was...everyone's moving and doing that all night, all night.
The whole club.
The energetic high that ravers feel on the dancefloor happens
because ecstasy triggers activity in another network in the brain.
In this network, a chemical messenger called dopamine transmits messages that control movement.
It all results in a burst of physical energy.
You will dance to anything.
Anything.
Even Soldier Boy by Justin Bieber.
But...actually, maybe not Justin. Nah, let me take that out!
What we see after high doses of MDMA, in humans and in particular laboratory animals,
is that we see quite stereotypical movements.
A rat will start running round its cage in a predictable manner.
We can also see that in humans.
Ecstasy users are famous for dancing in a repetitive style, hour after hour.
That's because dopamine release in this part of the brain,
the prefrontal cortex, makes them focus attention on one particular task -
in this case, dancing.
For Katie, the way ecstasy allows her to focus
on her favourite drum and bass music is a key attraction of the drug.
RUMBLING BASS SOUNDS IN BACKGROUND
That noise right there.
I don't know if you can hear that, but that "waah, waah, waah",
that is my call to nature.
It's almost like an out-of-body experience.
You actually feel connected to the music.
I just can't stop. I don't want the music to stop.
You can hear every level of it and other levels.
Ravers can focus on music more intensely after taking ecstasy
because of how the drug affects the brain's basic operating system.
Nerves in this network control and order what's going on all over the brain,
and make sure we stay focused on the stuff that's important.
When chemical messengers are released from cells in this network, instead of stimulating activity,
it dampens things down, allowing other more creative areas of the brain to run free.
There's a lot of serotonin receptors in that part of the brain,
and we think if you switch on serotonin,
you actually dampen down that brain's ability,
so the headmaster is no longer there and the kids can run riot.
So for example, the part of the brain that processes sound
allows us to hear and interpret music in new and interesting ways.
Because I've always been into drum and bass, it just makes it so much better.
The music's chaotic, everything's going off, so you can get into it a lot more.
I think people that are into pop,
and going to watch a Spice Girls gig, wouldn't necessarily be taking MD.
As appealing as many people find ecstasy, no-one knows for sure if it causes significant long term damage.
But we do know that in rare cases, ecstasy can kill.
And when such tragedies happen, the affect on family and friends is devastating.
18-year-old Leah Betts became front page news in 1995, when she died
after taking an ecstasy pill and her father launched a campaign to raise awareness of the drug's dangers.
There's a picture of my daughter
as she's laying in bed now.
My daughter paid £10 for this pill
that's very likely to cost her her life...
..and break up the family.
When Des Delaney lost his daughter Siobhan in 2005, ecstasy was implicated in the tragedy.
I never really heard about ecstasy until the death of Leah Betts and the publicity over it.
Raves and things like that, we didn't really have anything like that around this area.
We used to explain to Siobhan about Leah Betts,
about the dangers what are out there.
We just go through life, don't we, thinking everything's perfect.
On the night before Siobhan died, she had been out at a bar in Liverpool,
where she was alleged to have taken ecstasy.
The following day at home, she started having seizures and was rushed to hospital.
Doctors said Siobhan had suffered a condition called hyponatremia,
which was also implicated in the death of Leah Betts.
Hyponatremia is a rare condition in which the levels of water in the blood become dangerously high.
Ecstasy users are at risk because MDMA triggers a hormone that can make it difficult to urinate,
so they conserve more water than usual.
Also, people on ecstasy may drink more because they are dancing all night in hot, sweaty nightclubs.
This can raise the water levels in the body even further.
High levels of water in the blood can cause massive problems when the blood reaches the brain.
The cells swell with water, causing the brain to crush against the skull.
In catastrophic cases, the swollen brain pushes down on the spinal column.
Ecstasy was the initial cause of Siobhan's death.
How many ecstasy tables were said to have been taken by Siobhan?
Half a tablet.
But that's how dangerous the drug is, isn't it?
People have got to know what's out there, the dangers out there.
Katie is all too aware of the worry her teenage use of ecstasy caused her own family.
I feel like I was too young, when I look back on it now.
You look at a 16-year-old when they're off their head,
walking down the road, it just doesn't look nice,
and for the stress that it put my family through, that's not nice for any parent to go through.
And I understand that now. What do you think you'll say about drugs when you're a parent?
I can't be a hypocrite, so I think...I'm never going to condone it.
I'm never going to buy my kids drugs, but I will hopefully educate them on it.
I think that's what's important, guidance, not just saying no,
you can't do this, because that, on some ears, sounds like "you should do it".
Robert is also aware how controversial illegal drugs can be in society.
In an effort to limit the documentary's impact on his future,
he's decided not to use his real name.
I can't say I'm completely open.
I mean, naturally, because it is illegal,
I have to keep it sort of hidden from most of society.
People like my parents definitely would see it as a very dangerous drug
just because of the negative image it's got in the press.
I have heard a few horrific and catastrophic stories,
but there is always a risk when you're taking a drug like ecstasy or MDMA.
But you play a risk when you do anything fun.
It's 3am, and Robert's first line of MDMA is starting to wear off,
so he plugs up with his second hit.
Katie does the same.
Well, I'm currently up.
I am buzzing, I suppose. My eyes are sort of darting around the place.
I'm keeping...I've got a smile on my face I can't seem to wipe off.
I'm off my tits. I've only done two bombs so far, and I'm fucked.
I've still got a few more in a secret compartment, and I'll pull them out as and when.
As the ravers take more MDMA, the physical effects start to become more visible.
This is mainly down to the way MDMA triggers the release
of a chemical called noradrenaline all over the body.
Noradrenaline is something we're all familiar with, as it's the classic
fight/flight chemical. When people are frightened, noradrenaline is released.
It makes the pupils dilate, makes the heart go fast, makes you sweat a bit.
I've only done two bombs so far, and I'm fucked.
I'm not gonna lie, you can probably tell by my eyes.
Where nerve endings meet muscles in the eye,
noradrenaline triggers the muscle, making the pupil dilate.
Ravers are also notorious for clenching their jaw.
That's because noradrenaline excites the jaw muscles, resulting in the distinctive gurning action.
I've come out of a rave with a few bites on my tongue or a few teeth feeling a bit more sensitive.
Some dentists actually argue that one of the leading causes of loss
of teeth eventually is the fact that people are taking stimulant drugs
and also drinking fizzy drinks.
So all this stuff, when you're seeing someone on this, if you haven't done MD, it's definitely terrifying.
But for me when I see people doing it,
I know that the messier they look, the better time that they're having.
Getting too hot is another possible physical effect of ecstasy.
In rare cases, this can lead to a condition called hyperthermia.
We know that if you get your body temperature over 100, 102, you get into problems.
People become delirious, and in fact you can also damage other organs.
The muscles can be damaged, the heart can be damaged, the liver can be damaged.
Hyperthermia starts in a part of the brain called the hypothalmus.
This acts as our thermostat.
It's the part of the brain that's in charge of regulating temperature
all over the body and telling us how hot or cold we are.
Experts think the big release of serotonin in this part of the brain
could be enough to stop the body's thermostat working properly.
And in hot clubs, the body temperature can rise rapidly.
Without cooling the body, overheating can quickly set in in major organs like the liver.
When the body temperature tips over 40 degrees,
the proteins that make up our cells stop functioning properly.
They change their structure, a bit like when you heat milk.
When you heat milk, you get a skin on because the proteins in the milk lock together.
The proteins bind, causing the cells to stop working and the organ to shut down.
Every three months, Sarah Phillips and her fiance Pete come to Kings College Hospital in London
for a checkup at the liver unit.
It's been a regular appointment since Sarah was given an urgent
liver transplant as a result of her use of ecstasy nearly ten years ago.
Sarah's problems with ecstasy started when she took the drug on holiday in Ibiza.
She'd taken pills for the first time a few weeks earlier and was up for repeating the experience.
We met a group of lads and hit it off.
We got on the subject of talking about ecstasy,
and he said, "Have you ever done it before?",
and I said, "Yeah, I've done it once".
And he was like, "Do you wanna do half with me?"
I thought, "I can't see much damage, it's only half an ecstasy tablet",
so I took the small half and...yeah, I had no effect from it whatsoever.
The next day, I felt really ill.
Had a really bad come-down, constant diarrhoea, sickness.
Sarah's illness continued for the rest of her holiday
and when she returned home, she was admitted to hospital.
After a couple of days of being in hospital, they said I'd done damage to my liver.
They said "Did you do drugs?" I said "No I didn't do drugs".
They said "Well, if you done drugs, we need to know, cos then we can get down to the bottom of this".
I said no. Unless your mum buggers off, you can't say nothing.
So yeah, I just denied doing any drugs.
I didn't think it'd be that half an ecstasy tablet that done the damage.
After two weeks in hospital, Sarah made a full recovery and returned to normal life.
Convinced ecstasy had not been the cause of her illness,
she started clubbing again and took the drug several more times.
Gradually, Sarah's health started to deteriorate.
One night, she collapsed and was rushed back to casualty.
My mum then come to hospital and tried waking me up.
The doctors and nurses tried waking me up, and that's when they sedated me, before I slipped into a coma.
Sarah's liver was under attack.
The liver is where drugs are processed to remove toxic elements.
Enzymes normally break down ecstasy and send the toxic elements on to
the kidneys, where they leave the body through urine.
But some people can't break down ecstasy properly because they don't have enough of these enzymes,
so more of the toxic waste from the drug is left in the liver.
This waste can kill liver tissue,
and when more than 90% of it is destroyed, a transplant may be the only option.
I had a 50-50 chance of survival,
and then the following day it went down to a 5% chance of survival.
And they said to my mum and dad,
"I think you might need to sort the funeral arrangements out for your daughter.
"It's that bad, and we don't think we'll get a liver".
And I only had until the Friday to get a new liver, otherwise they'd turn my life support machine off.
Obviously, hope was going down the pan.
And then at three o'clock that morning, Mum got a phone call
saying "We've got a liver for your daughter".
After the transplant was over, there was a tense wait to see if Sarah's body would accept the new liver.
Several days after the operation, she regained consciousness.
It was horrible, because I couldn't talk to people and my mum shouted at me.
"You should have just told me the truth.
"You know I'm very anti-drugs, but you're my daughter.
"You're an idiot". Yeah, she told me off pretty much as soon as I woke up!
Sarah's liver transplant was successful, but it still has a huge impact on her life.
Last year she became pregnant, but gave birth prematurely and lost her baby.
Complications due to the liver transplant were thought to have played a part.
Despite this, Sarah and Pete still hope to have a baby in the future.
If and when Sarah and myself, you know, she does fall pregnant,
will I have to be looking out for any complications or what...?
Again, I don't think you should be looking out for anything,
but you would fit into what we call a high-risk pregnancy.
The biggest risk is prematurity,
but actually in general, we would aspire to making sure with our
obsterics colleagues that you actually have a normal pregnancy and you have a normal baby.
That's what we should aim for, that's one of the reasons to keep you alive and well.
I know so many people that do it every weekend, and they don't just do one or two,
they maybe do six or seven in one night, and I'd do a couple.
I've done less than ten in my life,
and I had that big impact on my life which...
still, to this day, has a big impact on my life.
It's 5am, and Katie and her mates have left the club.
What a group of people.
We literally smashed it.
Complete strangers, united for a few hours on the dancefloor, going nuts.
The girls head to a friend's flat to wind down.
After a few hours, the effects of the MDMA start to wear off
and the loved-up high subsides.
The receptors in the brain become tired of the frenzy of activity
and are less stimulated by the serotonin.
Gradually, the feelgood chemical starts to break down and drifts away.
I'm absolutely off my pickle.
My eyes are going "rrrrr", up and down.
So my vision's not quite there yet.
And I can't remember what we were talking about again.
So out of half a gram, I've still got two pretty big ones left.
So what do you think, do you think you'll save those for anther time, then?
Probably not. We'll see what happens.
It all depends on what everyone else is doing, because I don't want to be on this mission for no reason.
Because you've got this connection, and it is a really fucking good cool connection when you're all
on the same level and you don't really need to explain things to each other, everyone just knows.
It's like, "Yes. I know where you're coming from".
That's what I love. And I still can't remember what the question was.
In south London, the end of the night is in sight,
and Robert is considering whether to finish his MDMA stash.
The sun's up now, but we might still be here for
another hour or so, probably.
So I'm
going to take a little bit more, just to sort of keep me energised.
I feel fine now, but I know in about half an hour or so,
I'll start dragging myself about and then it will only go downhill.
Many ecstasy users try to keep up until morning by taking more of the drug.
But often, the loved-up feelings elude them.
That's because there's a limited supply of serotonin available,
and the massive release earlier has left the stores depleted.
I'll feel like my entire body is exhausted,
but my mind will still be racing a little bit.
The draining effects of the comedown don't just last for the day after use.
It can take up to a week for the brain to recover back to its normal concentrations of serotonin.
So some researchers actually think that these midweek blues are actually a combination of the fact that people
have stayed up all weekend and that their brain is trying to resynthesise serotonin.
The short-term depressive effects of ecstasy are well known.
But there are some who believe that, far from causing depression,
ecstasy can be used to treat it.
The roots of MDMA as a therapy drug go back to the late 1960s,
when psychedelic pharmacist Alexander Shulgin, since dubbed the Godfather of ecstasy,
synthesised the compound in his garden laboratory.
He was immediately impressed by its effects.
I saw that it was almost like an intoxicant.
I could see where I could have gotten into the knack of using it,
except my search was not being pleasurably turned on,
my search was finding new things.
Shulgin gave MDMA to psychologist friends,
and before long the drug was being widely used during therapy sessions.
This use for the drug went underground when it was banned.
Recently, though, a movement has been pushing to legalise MDMA
in therapy for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The reason MDMA is such as effective drug
is because it reduces the fear response to emotional threats.
People who have post-traumatic stress disorder,
they have a trauma that they have been unable to get past.
But with MDMA, in a very short amount of time,
it strengthens people's ability to accept and integrate emotional challenges.
This year, a major trial will begin testing MDMA in therapy with Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans
suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.
It comes on the back of recent successes treating PTSD patients
and those dealing with a terminal illness.
What we showed is that people who had post-traumatic stress disorder for an average of 19 years,
and had been resistant to treatment after a treatment process
of around three to three-and-a-half months of MDMA,
over 80% of them no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder.
I think we're about ten years away from MDMA as a prescription medicine.
Sue Stevens first came across MDMA when her husband was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
Shane definitely was, and is, the love of my life, yeah.
Soon after Shane's cancer diagnosis,
tensions appeared in the relationship for the first time.
If he brought up "I gotta go to a doctor's appointment"
or "this is going on", I would tense up and I would think "Cancer, doctor's appointment,
"death", and my head would start spinning and I would start crying.
We had a total breakdown in communication.
Our house wasn't a happy place to be.
There was a lot of stress there.
A friend, who had heard of the use of MDMA for relationship therapy,
suggested the couple try the drug together to work through their problems.
My reaction was "What? It's illegal drugs. We can't have this.
"That's the last thing we need right now, cops beating down the door", so that was my gut reaction.
We never would have thought that a street drug would be what we would need.
Because ecstasy is illegal and not recognised as a therapy tool by mainstream doctors,
Sue and Shane sought advice from an underground therapist
who was on call the night they took the drug together for the first time.
We're sitting there, watching movies.
Pretty Woman was on, I do recall that.
And about a half hour into it, we're sitting there going,
"Wow, this is a crappy movie, what are we waiting for",
and all of a sudden - poof - it all came to life.
Like the drug kicked in, and he just looks at me and he's holding my hand and going "all right, let's talk.
"I know what you wanna talk about. Come on, let's go.
"Let's get this out of the way, let's get the cancer out of the way.
"Let's become allies on it, let's talk".
When you take MDMA, things don't hurt you, the words don't hurt you.
You can feel them, but the pain doesn't come along with it.
The words definitely make their impact.
Had we not done that first session, we would not have been together at the time of his death.
Sue and Shane took MDMA together on three more occasions,
and found the experiences radically improved their ability
to discuss Shane's terminal illness between sessions.
Our final therapy session was 28 days before he died.
Why we taped it, I'm still not entirely sure.
I kind of think I just taped it for me, even though I still have a really hard time watching it.
We were just doing MDMA to be close.
To live all those years that were about to be taken away from us.
To have one more really strong bonding before he's gone.
There's a spot on here somewhere where he sits back
and says its really nice not to have cancer tonight,
because in a sense that night was cancer-free.
I miss that.
After Shane's death, Sue turned to MDMA again,
this time taking the drug with a trained therapist who helped her work through her grief.
For me, calling it a drug,
it's more of a medication to me.
It saved my life.
I've watched it do that to many people. To me, it's medication.
MDMA therapy remains controversial though, given the problems reported by some recreational users.
Some experts have suggested a danger might be ecstasy's possible role as a gateway drug.
When we first started looking at MDMA,
many of the users were single users of the drug.
They only took ecstasy.
In the past ten years, we've found far more users of the polydrug,
so they take ecstasy combined with other drugs.
Once you're an ecstasy user, the likelihood of using other illicit drugs is certainly increased.
Glenn Le Santo's son, Nimai, started out taking ecstasy and MDMA,
but soon began using other drugs alongside it.
I think it you look at that picture, you can see there is some evidence
of where his life was going and where drugs were becoming involved.
Nimai was a very bright young man.
It was obvious really from very early on, babyhood.
Interestingly, his first written words were disk, file and save.
I kid you not, they really were.
He had a thirst for knowledge,
if you like, he was drinking information all through his life.
Unfortunately that often leads to boredom, doesn't it?
Because society doesn't seem to be geared up deal with that type of hyper-intellect.
During secondary school, Nimai became disillusioned with formal education.
He started to spend less time at school and more time DJ-ing.
Nimai's clubbing lifestyle introduced him to ecstasy,
but before long, it started to have a negative impact on his life.
If you're living in a city like Brighton, you can go raving every single night.
You really can, you can go out and do it.
Or, and I think this is probably what began to happen, you can stay in and do it.
We all know the difference even between drinking a bottle of wine out in a restaurant with some friends,
while sinking a bottle of wine in a miserable evening in front of the television.
You are going to definitely get into this situation where you're
trying to fill in the troughs and how are you going to fill them in? You're going to take more drugs.
Nimai was living away from home in Brighton and was using ecstasy with a range of other drugs,
including ketamine and GHB.
Glenn heard rumours his son was in trouble and persuaded him to come back and stay at the family home.
The first night he was here, he vomited all over the room,
and I think that was the point when I realised that there was serious trouble here.
And I challenged him and he said "No, no, I'm not taking anything, honest, I'm not taking anything",
and I knew he was lying.
Things improved and Nimai got a job and made plans to enrol at the local university.
But before long, signs of his old life started to creep in.
He started to going to Brighton again, ostensibly on social trips
but I knew what was going on,
and I knew what was going on because he was failing to go to work on the following Monday,
so he obviously got battered on the weekend.
And he came here on the Friday before he died,
and as he left to cycle down to the station I said, "be careful",
because I knew where he was going and what he was doing,
and I made a mental note to recapture him physically,
quite literally when he came back, that's it. He's coming back here.
We're going to drag him out of his digs,
and he'll live here for a few more weeks before he starts his course.
Of course, he never came back.
Him and his friend were basically tooled up to party the whole weekend and he didn't go out,
they stayed in his friend's flat and they just took maximum amounts of drugs, they took everything.
They took cocaine, amphetamines,
ketamine, liquid ecstasy, MDMA,
G, and apparently, they also smoked heroin.
They'd been banging their way through their stash, Friday night, Saturday,
Sunday morning, his friend had to go to work, so he left Nimai sleeping.
There's text messages on Nimai's phone from his friend saying,
"Don't take all the mandy, save some for me."
Nimai was probably already dead by the time his friend sent that.
The toxicology blamed MDMA, but subsequently the inquest suggested
it was just layer upon layer upon layer of abuse.
I'm a realist, I know that he had a horrible death.
Death in this situation is drowning.
Your central nervous system stops working, so your lungs stop moving,
when your lungs stop moving, they fill up with body fluid.
That means that your brain stays alive while you die.
But your body can't do anything about it.
And people out there who think, "I don't even care if it kills me
"because I'll just fall asleep and I'll be high and it'll be great",
it's bullshit. It's not going to be like that.
It's going to be terrible.
Here's a comment says, "You always smashed it at Vibe Alive, mate.
"Rest in peace." Meaning that when he was on the decks, he tore it up.
He was very, very good at it.
"I only met you a few times, man, but good times were had."
"To the big club in the sky and to you, we all raise our glasses."
I can't read any more, sorry.
People say time is a healer.
It isn't. It really isn't.
All that you do is put on a slightly thicker skin to deal with the pain.
He would've been dead two years in a couple of weeks time,
it's as fresh and as raw as it was the day I got that phone call.
And in fact, sometimes it's worse.
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, I really wouldn't.
# Statements, statement
# Investigation department
# Hey, hey. Hey, hey... #
It's 8am, Sunday morning.
Robert took his last MDMA of the night two hours ago.
We've gone over the mountain and now we're on our descent.
So, yeah, I'm on my way down a bit, I'm not too far down but...
But spirits are high!
Spirits are always high.
Villagers are always rejoicing.
This is the sign of a good night, when you leave the rave with a smile on your face,
despite the fact you're coming down and you're feeling like crap,
you're still walking down the street
happy as Larry with a bit fat grin on your face.
They used to call me "Comedown Katie".
As soon as the sunlight started coming up, I'd be very paranoid about what a state I looked.
Usually disgusting.
Your stomach just feel hollow but you can't eat, you don't want to eat and you slowly start withering away.
I'm a bit tired, but I'm not really.
I'm definitely like, absolutely fine,
but I just can't wait to have a bit fat spliff
and get all cuddly and wrapped in a duvet and watch some films.
Yay, made it!
# 15 miles down river that rain will clear... #
Wow, that's amazing.
Katie's first aid kit to help the comedown is a vitamin pill...
and a joint.
Erm, I just like to do it, after I've been out in the morning,
when you get back and you're like, yes.
Now there's no more goal for the day really, other than to just relax.
God I'm so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open.
Many clubbers like to relax with a joint when they get home,
but the chilled-out high can have side effects, like anxiety and paranoia.
I think we had a good time, didn't we guys?
Yeah.
I'm slowly starting to feel a little more groggy
as the morning goes on.
I'm going to end up sleeping the day away.
It's a Halloween Sunday, I don't think anyone will expect too much of me today.
I never thought I'd be a drug user, ever, when I was a kid,
but with ecstasy, you feel like a much more talkative, friendly,
open, honest, empathetic you.
I can't really tell right now if I'm going to be taking ecstasy for years.
I don't think I'll be taking it when I'm 40 or 50.
I think by then, I should've calmed down a bit,
but who knows? Who knows?
Ah...
I absolutely loved and adored everyone that crossed my path
and erm, wanted to be best friends with them for life.
I have no idea who any of them are, obviously.
Does it ever feel a bit surface?
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but who cares?
Obviously I'm not going to be best friends with them, I don't
care, it's just in the moment, that just happens and you just enjoy it while you're there.
And it works.
I just want to sleep and this will help me.
Oh, god. That's not... Right.
I wouldn't say that MDMA and other drugs are necessarily important in my life.
That's not the only thing I'm into, I've done really well at school, I'm now at uni.
I've gone travelling on my own.
It's something that I do and I enjoy it.
MUSIC: "I'd Do It All Again" by Corinne Bailey Rae
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk