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I don't know about ne1 else, but e has fucked my memory..


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It's not just you:

The Agony of Ecstasy: Memory Loss

Growing Forgetfulness Seen Even in Occasional Users

By Daniel J. DeNoon

WebMD Medical News

Reviewed by Dr. Tonja Wynn Hampton

April 9, 2001 -- It's not just loss of sleep from weekends spent at all-night rave parties: Long-term ecstasy users lose important parts of their memory.

As have previous studies, a report in the medical journal Neurology finds that people who use the drug known as ecstasy, X, or E have trouble remembering things. The new study, however, shows that people who take the drug only two or three times a month experience memory loss. And that loss continues to worsen over time.

"We certainly know that for those who are chronic users, their memories are indeed impaired over time," lead author Konstantine Zakzanis, PhD, tells WebMD. "The question that remains is, "Is this change permanent or reversible?"

Ecstasy is a MDMA, short for methlyenendioxymethamphetamine, a member of the amphetamine family of drugs known to damage important brain cells in animal studies. The drug has been around for a long time, but achieved popularity only in the 1980s with the advent of the all-night dance parties known as raves.

"It was originally used as a diet suppressant in the first world war," says Zakzanis, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto in Canada. "In the 1940s and 1950s, it was used in marital counseling to help couples deal with their emotions. In the mid-'80s, it found its way into the rave culture. Most people feel euphoric, happy -- a lot of people get energetic, too, but that may be because the ecstasy people buy on the street is often mixed in with other substances, such as caffeine or Tylenol or amphetamine."

Unlike previous studies that tested ecstasy users only one time, Zakzanis enrolled 15 users in a yearlong study. The participants, aged 17-31, used the drug an average of 2.4 times each month. All study subjects agreed to stop taking the drug for two weeks at the beginning and at the end of the year -- a drug vacation confirmed by blood tests -- so that measurements of mental function would not be confused by lack of sleep or a lingering "high."

Memory tests showed that the ecstasy users' memories declined over the course of the year. Certain types of memory were affected -- particularly the ability to recall the contents of a news story that was read to them. On this test, they did only half as well as they had done a year before.

The ecstasy users' vocabulary skills also declined, as did their abilities to remember people's names and to remember how to get from one place to another.

"The subjects were listening to a news story and they found it difficult to remember the story after a delay," Zakzanis says. "They reported driving and forgetting where they were going, but didn't forget how to drive a car. And they had difficulty remembering names when introduced to someone."

Zakzanis says heavy ecstasy users also lost the ability to remember to do something in the future. "The more chronic users were impaired more greatly than sporadic users -- so the more you use this drug, the more function you lose," he says.

Una D. McCann, MD, led several studies of ecstasy's effects while a section chief at the National Institute of Mental Health. Now an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, she continues this research and is familiar with Zakzanis's work.

"We and actually a handful of other groups have found that [ecstasy] users don't perform as well on a variety of tests for [mental] functions -- but the one problem that comes up most is memory," McCann tells WebMD. "It seems that the more complicated a memory task is, the more of a deficit we see."

The Zakzanis study is the first to follow patients over time, McCann says. "It takes away a lot of the criticisms of other studies, because people say maybe the subjects had worse memory to begin with. But the finding that the users got worse over the course of a year counteracts that complaint -- that's the beauty of this study."

Zakzanis says that the ecstasy users in his study are still coming in for tests. Some of them have quit using the drug -- but only time will tell whether the damage to their brains can be undone.

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Well...............

I think that the impaired memory loss is the exact same for the trivial facts that alcohol or herb will do for you.....I know from the simple experience.

If you abuse it (just the same as abusing any other drug) then of course it will impair your memory loss. However, moderation should not affect you differently then any other state-altering substane.

Be real. The govt comes out with all these facts abot how bad E is and how it burns holes in your brain by all these clinical studies they perform. The same govt that performed the studies in the 1950's about how herb made people go psyczo and tear up ther town with just one puff.

Don't completely buy into it. Just keep yourself in moderation and you should be able to enjoy yourself without any real dangers.

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Oh yeah i forgot about the weed part. I smoke entirely to much weed. haha ^ go figure!! I guess that has affected my memory as well. Well the good thing is i haven't rolled in like 8months so i am trying to stay away from x for a while. I love the herbs though not doubt about it.

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Ehh.. I don't really think it makes me feel dumb, but it just makes me feel like shit, not necessarily intellectually slower, just physically slower.. although I know it must have the "dumbing" effect on people cause I see the effects on some of my friends that drop like 8 pills per night... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It's like their goal in life is to be fucked up, I really can't stand it, makes me wonder what in their life is so horrible that they can't deal with being SOBER...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I feel like I lost a little bit of memory function from since a year and a half ago when I first dropped my first pill. I don't feel as though I'm stupider, just a lot of times, I can't find my wallet, my keys, my cell phone or I forget to bring something somewhere. Stuff like that. It happened before.... but i feel it happening A LOT more often.

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Yeah my memory is not what it used to be.

I have been noticing for like the past year that i forgot easier, and its harder for me to study for a test.

i used to roll like every weekend for months and months straight, but now i just roll twice a month or somehting. so ive calmed down.

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well yeah drugs for one arent the most healthy things for you..so yeah i hear you..its good for leaving wholes in your brain too...i have laid off e for a while and actually feel better and more healthy..

:bounce:

cd

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