Mormons as a control group for MDMA studies

[Nimrod]

It wasn’t all club kids using [MDMA--a.k.a. Molly and ecstasy]. Nuwer’s book charts a few unlikely subcultures that used MDMA, starting with the Mormons. Even though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibits its members from drinking alcohol, a Mormon doctoral student told the drug activist Rick Doblin in 2003 that he’d personally taken MDMA more than 1,000 times. As he put it, molly was a common substance used by his friends in the faith.

“They were these Mormon kids who were otherwise straight-edgers going out to raves and partying all night,” Nuwer said. “I think they were doing some mental gymnastics to get around the rules, thinking it was fine to just try MDMA if they weren’t drinking.”

These Mormons became a key control group for MDMA researchers, Nuwer explains, as they could study the effects of the drug on them and know for certain they were not using any other substances.

[Philo Sofee]

Fascinating, but no surprise.

[Dr. Shades]

It was still legal then, right?

[drumdude]

So ecstasy was the “soaking” of illicit drugs?

[Nimrod]

It was still legal then, right?

The article is a bit unclear on the timeline. MDMA became illegal on July 1, 1985. The Mormon doctoral student was interviewed in 2003, according to the Guardian article. Julie Nuwer who wrote the book about MDMA that is referred to in the Guardian article is quoted in that article as saying it was Mormons going to raves and all-night parties--such was primarily a 90s phenomenon that evolved out of the 80s dance parties scene in the U.S.