Ecstasy, why not?

In the early 1980s, a young pudgy faced Australian recorded his one and only major hit: Love is in the Air. This song may have foreshadowed the widespread use of the recreational drug Ecstasy which transmits a feeling of (maudlin) love and affection combined with the physical stamina needed to dance for hours. It has come at a time when popular culture has given birth to marathon dance clubs and hypnotic and "metabolic" music. Dance clubs and Ecstasy are synonymous.

So it seems that love is definitely not in the air in Indonesia. In the hysteria that has surrounded this drug which has been classified as very dangerous -- perhaps fatalities from zealous hugs and anoxia from kissing have been reported. Even in Australia, the use of Ecstasy has not been widely condemned despite two or three reported deaths from hyperthermia and dehydration. Personally I would prefer this to wheezing, coughing and drowning in my sputum as a result of years of smoking.

What amazes me is the complete lack of reasoned debate on this drug. Who (or what) then is behind all this? Does the drug threaten the vast profits made by the tobacco industry or does it threaten someone's personal monopoly on recreational drugs? And why are Indonesians simply not allowed to feel good?

The so-called war on drugs is full of calculated misinformation and economic colonialism. The American-declared war on marijuana and hemp products has cleared the way for its developing cotton industry. On the other hand, the historical use of marijuana (and other psychotropic drugs such as psylocybin) by Moslem, Hindu and Buddhist mystics as a method to access higher powers is well recorded in old texts. The Taleban, holy as they believe they are, still snort heaps of kiff. However in countries that have absorbed Western economic culture, marijuana continues to be a pariah despite its relative safety.

Years ago I was told that a man suffering severe work stress had hurled a filing cabinet out of a five-story window. After that, all filing cabinets were bolted to the floor. Indonesia in its railings and prohibitions against Ecstasy has taken to the same bureaucratic solutions. Don't bother analyzing the social/political environment or the needs of people, just ban and punish, which ensures that the price goes up and the international syndicates move in.

The hypocrisy is that while the relatively nonaddictive and benign Ecstasy is attracting hysterical speeches, exhortations and death penalties, cigarettes which as one medical researcher observed "are the only drug which kill if used as prescribed" are freely available to poison and disable thousands of Indonesians.

MELODY KEMP

Ubud, Bali