Pubdate: Mon, 21 Oct 2013
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Alana Semuels
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

HOW NEW YORK STAYS UP LATE

The Street Drug Molly, Often Thought to Be a 'Safe' High, Fuels an 
All-Hours Lifestyle.

NEW YORK - After a long and raucous dinner party on a recent 
weeknight, guests decamped to a loft in Manhattan's TriBeCa 
neighborhood, perhaps the most desirable chunk of real estate in the 
city that never sleeps.

There was no music or dancing at this after-party, though. Instead, a 
host distributed clear capsules of tiny white crystals that guests 
proceeded to swallow - an illicit dessert known as Molly, a synthetic 
stimulant that has suddenly become as much a part of the 24hour-a-day 
New York lifestyle as cocaine was to another generation.

In this case, two financiers at the party had just completed a 
multimillion-dollar pact, a cause not only for celebration but for 
bonding of the kind that can occur only in the netherworld after 3 
a.m. Later that morning, everyone drifted out to go to work.

"In today's era, everyone is popping pills," said a fashion company 
owner who was one of the guests but who feared using her name could 
put her job at risk. "Everyone wants to come to New York and succeed, 
but there's so much pressure, so much competition.... With Molly, 
you're happy, you're free, there's no worries, no negative talk."

Molly is marketed as a pure form of MDMA, the main ingredient in the 
street drug Ecstasy. Often associated with electronic dance festivals 
and shilled as a "safe" high, it is gaining fans across the country. 
But the national Drug Abuse Warning Network noted a 120% increase in 
the number of emergency room visits involving MDMA from 2004 to 2011.

Public health officials say the drug is often not as pure as its 
marketing claims, and its effects are increasingly proving fatal. Two 
people died at the New York Electric Zoo festival over the Labor Day 
weekend after ingesting Molly, and at least four others were 
hospitalized in critical condition. Two other deaths that weekend, 
one in Washington state and the other in Boston, were also attributed 
to the drug.

Molly was a fixture at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts 
Festival, and is increasingly part of the Los Angeles club scene. Sam 
Torbati, co-chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at 
Cedars-Sinai Hospital, said Southern California physicians had seen 
an uptick in patients who had used Molly or MDMA, though precise 
numbers had not been compiled. In San Francisco, MDMA-related 
emergency room visits were up 30% between 2008 and 2011.

Molly seems to have especially captivated New Yorkers, who use it to 
keep up in a fast-paced city where both parties and work obligations 
can regularly run into the wee hours of the morning, and yawning is 
frowned upon. Faced with the pressures of living in an exhausting 
city, some New Yorkers say they use Molly to help them keep up with 
life. It's a dangerous proposition: Emergency room visits here of 
people who say they have taken MDMA doubled between 2008 and 2011, a 
much higher rate of increase than that in other U.S. cities.

"We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of people who say 
they've taken Molly," said Dr. Theodore Bania, director of research 
and toxicology at the emergency departments of St. Luke's and 
Roosevelt hospitals in New York.

Some Molly enthusiasts could be found on a recent Thursday night at a 
hub for night owls: the New York club Marquee, where doors don't even 
open until 11 p.m. Lights flashed red and blue as an earsplitting 
beat rattled an ever-more-crowded dance floor. There was no room for 
the weary: Tables were reserved for groups that had spent thousands 
of dollars on bottle service; everyone else had to stand, or better yet, dance.

One clubgoer, Zack Daniels, 20, said knowing he could look forward to 
that "pure, happy moment" that came with Molly helped him get through 
the daily indignities of life in New York. It sustained him through a 
tough patch when his mother was very sick, he said, and helps him 
appreciate music festivals he might otherwise dislike.

"It makes me lose all my worries, and forget why I wake up and don't 
want to go to work, and why I hate the subway, and why I hate 
homeless people asking for money," Daniels said as throngs of men, 
many shirtless, pushed their way up and down the crowded staircases 
that link the club's two levels. "It makes me forget all of that and 
just appreciate the good things in life."

Onstage, dancers in feathered headdresses gyrated next to someone in 
a black and white mime costume. The clubgoers were hard to 
distinguish from the entertainers - one woman was walking around in a 
bra and underwear, and another man danced happily by himself in a 
sparkling white robe. People could be heard shouting over the music, 
asking whether others "knew Molly."

Jean Mone, a therapist and substance abuse counselor in New York, 
says that in the last year or two, more of her clients have mentioned 
using the drug. They range in age, but some of them are in their 
early 20s and take the drug to stay up all night and blow off steam 
after long, demanding days at work. Some take Molly to stay up at 
night and then pop Adderall, another stimulant, to get up in the 
morning and go to work.

The uptick in Molly abuse, in Mone's view, is the result of a 
collision with reality as "Generation Me" comes of age, expecting 
everything out of life and not wanting to compromise when there 
aren't enough hours to do it all.

"There's this pressure placed on them to do well at work, keep up 
with their job, and at the same time, they want to socialize," Mone said.

On New York Craigslist, there were numerous listings from dealers 
selling Molly for $100 a gram. "Pure crystals!!!!" one ad proclaims. 
"Molly's here with me!" says another.

MDMA is not a new substance. It was used in the 1970s and 1980s for 
psychotherapy, primarily for couples having difficulty making 
connections and people who needed help opening up. It's still used in 
experiments to help patients with post-traumatic stress.

The drug earned a bad reputation in the 1980s and 1990s when it was 
marketed as Ecstasy but often came mixed with other dangerous 
chemicals, leading to deaths and hospital visits. The same thing is 
happening now with Molly, which is marketed as a pure form of MDMA, 
but is often mixed with other substances in the labs where it is 
made, said Dawn Dearden, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"Even though it comes in this cute foil package, you have no idea 
what comes in that package," Dearden said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in September urged the federal 
government to crack down on Molly, and the New York state Assembly 
recently approved a bill increasing the penalties for people who sold 
chemical compounds such as Molly.

That worries people such as Rick Doblin, a researcher and founder of 
the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies, a California 
group that advocates for marijuana and psychedelic drugs to be used 
in a clinical setting. Though Molly can be dangerous, it also has an 
important role in therapy, he said, and has been used on hundreds of 
patients since the 1970s. His group is hoping to get Food and Drug 
Administration approval for MDMA as a therapeutic drug by 2021.

"In this digital age, people want human emotion, they want to 
celebrate communally," Doblin said. "People are hungry for this type 
of experience."

Many New Yorkers say the drug is already so widespread that cracking 
down on it could be tough. "People do it all the time," said Alex, a 
Wall Street financier who declined to publish his last name. Standing 
in a bar in the heart of the financial district, he said he attended 
a recent media and advertising conference where Molly was served up 
at the afterparty.

Now, it was late on a weeknight, and Alex - who, like most everyone 
else in the bustling bar, was still wearing an expensive suit from 
the previous day's work - had to be back at the office early the next 
morning. Still, he had no immediate plans to go home, nor did he seem 
to worry much about repercussions at work if he was caught having 
danced with Molly. Who would complain?

"Even the bosses do it."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom