Darkfire--the problem with those studies that you posted is that they really don't say much about normal human use...
The first study, about depleted serotonin levels, is best explained here-
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Some highlights--"
there is some suggestive evidence that there are serotonin reductions in a group of people who have taken MDMA an average of 90 or more times"
"
There is no evidence that there are serotonin reductions in groups of people who have taken MDMA fewer than 90 times."
"An unpublished MAPS-funded study by Ricaurte, in which oral 2.5 mg/kg MDMA was administered to non-human primates once every two weeks for four months (8 administrations) showed no effect in levels of serotonin"The second link says straight out
" Monkeys were administered toxic doses of MDMA; two weeks later, the animals were lightly anesthetized with ether and CSF was obtained by means of cervical puncture"A toxic dose is a toxic dose, you would expect bad things to happen...
I agree wholeheartedly that
MDMA if abused can seriously cause some brain damage. The difference is between abuse and use. Britain's own head of the Government's drug advisory body(or at least he was--until he got fired for saying this), Proffesor David Nutt said that Ecstacy was no more dangerous than horseback riding. I consider Tylenol to be a much more toxic substance with a greater risk of death and irreparable bodily harm. (accounts for more than 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations, and an estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure each year)
I have never tried MDMA for my clusters, but I would not be surprised if it worked as a pretty damn good abortive. (not so sure about long term or "busting" a cluster...but it wouldn't really surprise me either...) Amphetamines in general have been shown in some folks to be effective (Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!! You need to

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) and the class of drugs that Ecstasy is in (Phenethylamines) have an amphetamine aspect of it, that's why a lot of ravers use it, because it is a hallucinogen that also gives them a good bit of energy. This amphetamine side is also what gives it the biggest risk, overheating. Luckily, you can smoke weed to counteract the effect (assuming it's not going to trigger a cluster for you

) --
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I'm betting the combo of amphetamine and serotonin rush would kick a clusters ass, but I can't say how you would feel the next day...Although out of the few reports we've gotten from people, I have never heard anyone say that it made their clusters in any way worse.
All that is all great info, but there is a majorly good point being made in that you really don't know what you are getting when you buy the stuff...I don't think it's impossible to get real MDMA, but I'm betting you really have to know someone.
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Last thought--what Kevin_M was saying about George Ricaurte's negative studies...The story behind it was that Ricaurte who was at one time a respected researcher (and NIDA crony) did studies claiming brain damage, and after Charles Grof and MAPS confronted all sorts of inaccuracies with the study and had to pull out freedom of information act BS on him it was finally brought to light that a vial was labeled wrong and he "accidentely" gave monkeys huge doses of Methemphetamine instead of MDMA (oops!) Many researchers have pointed out that even if this was not intentional (many many researchers feel otherwise) Ricaurte ignored many previous studies that showed completely different results, not to mention the fact that Monkeys were keeling over dead at doses that didn't make sense for MDMA--and then went on to publish his BS all over the place.
More fun reading on this subject here--
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-Ricardo