7. Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFKmFB81ItI In another entry brought to you by Channel 4, this documentary saw a host of volunteers participating in a study which required each of them to ingest 83mg of MDMA. Fear not, these buzzed guinea pigs were not then let loose in a club somewhere for a Mental Night, only to be filmed babbling away for entertainment purposes. Actually, the entire thing was little more than a controlled scientific experiment, in which the participants got comfortable in an MRI scanner while doctors monitored their neurological responses. As the programme's content itself consisted largely of in-studio discussion on the experiment, there really wasn't a great deal to see if you were expecting something of a drug-fuelled TV car crash. Still, the show predictably evoked a strong reaction. Some believed Drugs Live was harmless; most notably, experiment co-designer Professor David Nutt, a leading British psychiatrist and former government advisor, made the controversial and widely disputed claim that taking esctasy was no more dangerous than horse riding. Others argued that the programme could contribute to the glamourisation of the drug, and feared that the experiment's implications would minimise or dismiss the potential harm ecstasy could do. While educational, the programme was always going to be fodder for controversy and debate.
Stephanie Farrell
Contributor
Stephanie is a writer and free spirit who likes to pretend she's a Londoner, though strictly speaking she's from Watford. She likes books, music, elephants, and hairspray.
See more from
Stephanie