ling to be overturned in subsequent court cases. The temporary ban only lasted for a year; meanwhile a hearing was set up to decide what permanent measures should be taken against the drug. The case received much publicity and was accompanied by press reports advancing the kind of scare stories now current in Europe, which added to the pressure to make the ban permanent. One widely publicized report referred to evidence that another drug, MDA, caused brain damage in rats and concluded that MDMA could cause brain damage in humans. The media indulged in horror scenarios of 'our kids' brains rotting by the time they were thirty, although there was no evidence that MDMA caused brain damage in rats at the dosage levels used by humans. On the other side were the psychotherapists who gave evidence of the benefits of the drug, but they had failed to prepare their ground by carrying out scientifically acceptable trials, so their evidence was regarded as 'anecdotal'. The case ended with the judge recommending that MDMA be placed in a less restrictive category, Schedule three, which would have allowed it to be manufactured, to be used on prescription and to be the subject of research. But the recommendation was ignored by the DEA, which refused to back down and instead placed MDMA permanently in Schedule one. A group of MDMA supporters made a successful challenge to this decision in the Federal Court of Appeal, but their objections were overturned on March 23, 1988. The fight is still continuing on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional, that the correct procedure was not followed. and that the DEA did not take all the evidence into account. The criminalization of MDMA in America has had wide-ranging consequences. The first was to prevent the drug being used by professional therapists, except in Switzerland. The second was to reduce the quality of the drug as sold on the street, because demand was now met by clandestine laboratories and...
