The Ecstasy Generation

On Saturday, February 3, a 24-year-old Dane by the name of Andy Ramon Jacobs swallowed 84 condoms, containing 3,500 Ecstasy pills, and boarded a plane for the United States.

	Help Change America's Drug Policies! The hit movie Traffic -- nominated yesterday for the "Best Picture" Oscar award -- has millions of Americans talking and thinking differently about drug use, abuse, and victims of our country's destructive drug war. To capitalize on this national buzz, the Lindesmith Center/Drug Policy Foundation, a leading drug reform group, has created StopTheWar.com. The flashy, slick site weaves images from Traffic into an interactive game where users can try to "win" the war on drugs by pursuing one of three strategies: lock 'em up, cut off the supply, or just say no! Surprising facts and figures are peppered throughout the site, along with sensible suggestions for drug policy reform. StopTheWar ultimately hopes that it will inspire people to get involved in the growing drug reform movement. A long, well-organized list of organizations on the "What You Can Do" page presents many opportunities to lend your support. And as a nice little perk for those who loved or haven't seen the film, you can enter a contest to win a Traffic video or DVD on the "Add Your Voice" page. The Lindesmith Center is hoping to spread the word far and wide about StopTheWar; webmasters who support the principles of drug reform, may want to consider adding a button or banner from StopTheWar to their sites. Writers and editors who may want to write a story about the site, or about the larger movement to end the drug war, should check out the site's press release.

Beyond the deleterious coils of his bowels, Andy's Ecstasy was headed into the mouths and brains of all sorts of Americans: high school students, seeking a four-hour high free of self-loathing and alienation; club-goers, intent on finding euphoric bon âme with thousands of techno-entranced strangers; middle-aged professionals, wishing to connect to their partners in a theraputic experience flooded with chemically-enhanced joy. Andy's Ecstasy never made it past US Customs, but as a teenager to whom I showed the article of Andy's bust commented: "There are still plenty of happy pills to be found in this promised land."

Slowly but surely, Ecstasy is becoming the drug of choice for the millennial era. Unlike the dreamy, scatter-braining affect of marijuana, which gave '60s middle-class youth rebel credentials, or cocaine, which suited the self-centered, driven individualism of the '80s, Ecstasy, known variously as "a year of Prozac in one pill" and "penicillin for the soul," is being popped by a wide cross-section of Americans -- anywhere from 2 to 7 percent of the population. "It appears the Ecstasy problem will eclipse the crack-cocaine problem we experienced in the late 1980s," a cop told the Richmond Times-Dispatch last summer.

Why Now?

Some say that Ecstasy is just the ultimate party drug, smoother than cocaine or LSD, less numbing than pot -- and that people have always used drugs to escape. Others, however, describe it in more startling terms. They say it is a postmodern cure in a pill; that it eases spiritual emptiness and rancorous individualism; that it is a chemical salve for everything from alienation and depression to the lack of spirituality and community. Most of all, it seems to give people an ability to feel inspired when otherwise they cannot.

Thor, a 31-year-old computer freelancer and son of an international oil executive, is a typical example. He has often suffered from depression, a cloud of self-doubt and self-criticism he says has prevented him from pursuing goals his father disparaged. "I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing today [composing music] if it weren't for my experience on Ecstasy," Thor told me. "You see, it gives you a sense of absolute reality; in other words, you are able to see what is your reality, not the wider culture's."