Taking ecstasy once can damage memory – study
Reuters
Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:47 PM IST28
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL2559594520070626
LONDON (Reuters Life!) – Taking the drug ecstasy just once can cause significant short and long-term memory loss, a British study has shown.
Researchers at Hertfordshire University did not find a link between persistent ecstasy taking and continued memory deterioration, suggesting that one-off use can be enough to cause life-long damage.
They said 75 percent of users have a significantly impaired memory compared to those who have never touched the drug. Ecstasy is a popular drug among club goers.
“It’s almost as if there is a one hit problem,” study leader Keith Laws told Reuters.
“Essentially it’s the same if you take only a few, or an extremely large amount of tablets.”
Laws’s team has found that verbal, and not visual, memory was affected by ecstasy intake in their analysis of 26 studies which involved 600 users.
The average user in the study had taken 327 pills in their lifetime with a range of 16 to 902.
Recent figures show that ecstasy is recreationally used by an estimated 500,000 people in Britain and many users remain unaware of the damage they are causing by taking the drug
